sleepy
Americanadjective
-
sleepier,
comparative
-
sleepiest
superlative
-
ready or inclined to sleep; drowsy.
- Synonyms:
- slumberous, somnolent, tired
-
of or showing drowsiness.
-
languid; languorous.
a sleepy gesture.
-
lethargic; sluggish.
a sleepy brook.
-
quiet.
a sleepy village.
-
inducing sleep; soporific.
sleepy warmth.
adjective
-
inclined to or needing sleep; drowsy
-
characterized by or exhibiting drowsiness, sluggishness, etc
-
conducive to sleep; soporific
-
without activity or bustle
a sleepy town
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of sleepy
Middle English word dating back to 1175–1225; see origin at sleep, -y 1
Explanation
When you're sleepy, you're tired or drowsy. Snow White's dwarf who is always yawning? That's Sleepy! Sleepy people need to sleep. Sleepy things (like a sleepy yawn or a sleepy face) can be evidence of how exhausted someone is. If a place is described as sleepy, it means "unexciting" or "without activity," so you could call the little village where your grandparents live a sleepy town. You can also call your tired friend a "sleepy head," a term that's been around since the 1500s.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
For Pant's family in the sleepy Himalayan foothill town of Ramnagar, his arrest has brought those fears sharply into focus.
From Barron's ● Aug. 21, 2026
One was of a place I’d been hearing about for years: a sleepy beach town surrounded by several others, an area beloved by fashion insiders, artists and nature lovers alike.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
He faces Republican state Sen. David Brock Smith in a sleepy blue-state race that Merkley is favored to win.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
This internal timing system influences when the body feels awake or sleepy over each roughly 24-hour cycle.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 26, 2026
She hugged the grain bag and considered telling a story to pass the time until she felt sleepy.
From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer
After next week, deal flow may slow during the usually sleepier months of July and August and pick back up again after Labor Day.
From Barron's ● Jun. 26, 2026
As a shopping event, the day itself is sleepier, and the deals are available much longer.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 26, 2025
With sleep compression, you can also stop, or reverse course and extend time in bed again, if you start to feel sleepier during the day.
From Slate ● Jul. 19, 2025
While December remains a sleepier month for new book releases than other times of the year, December 2024 offers quite a few terrific titles, so many that it was difficult to choose among them.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 30, 2024
When Kate had returned in the middle of the night, she’d awakened Constance to fill her in, and afterward Constance was even sleepier than usual.
From "The Mysterious Benedict Society" by Trenton Lee Stewart
When the sleepiest central bank on Earth becomes the one that matters, the plot has thickened.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 28, 2026
Time of day factors in because of our biological clocks; we’re sleepiest late at night and early in the morning.
From Slate ● Nov. 26, 2025
Here we are on a Friday, traditionally the sleepiest of Westminster’s weekdays, and MPs confront a potentially generational defining vote on assisted dying while the government confronts its first cabinet resignation.
From BBC ● Nov. 29, 2024
There was, really, precious little to remember at all: no goals, few shots, little drama — a drab, rain-sodden stalemate between the French capital’s third-most successful soccer team and the country’s sleepiest giant.
From New York Times ● Apr. 10, 2024
Even the grumpiest and sleepiest of the men stood up straight.
From I Survived the American Revolution, 1776 by Lauren Tarshis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
