SLEEPLESS

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Always watchful

Example:

to an eye like mine, a lidless watcher of the public weal

Synonyms:

lidless; sleepless

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

alert; watchful (engaged in or accustomed to close observation)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Experiencing or accompanied by sleeplessness

Example:

twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights

Synonyms:

insomniac; sleepless; watchful

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

awake (not in a state of sleep; completely conscious)

Derivation:

sleeplessness (a temporary state in which you are unable (or unwilling) to sleep)

Credits

Context examples:

The evening passed without a pause of misery, the night was totally sleepless.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

The change which a few hours had wrought in the minds and the happiness of the Dashwoods, was such—so great—as promised them all, the satisfaction of a sleepless night.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

The four travelers passed a sleepless night, each thinking of the gift Oz had promised to bestow on him.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

After a sleepless night, I arose weak and in agony, to hobble through my second day on the Ghost.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He was in his dressing-gown, but his pale, hollow-eyed face told me that his night had been a sleepless one.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As long as Mr. Knightley remained with them, Emma's fever continued; but when he was gone, she began to be a little tranquillised and subdued—and in the course of the sleepless night, which was the tax for such an evening, she found one or two such very serious points to consider, as made her feel, that even her happiness must have some alloy.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

And later, on a sleepless pillow, she puzzled, as she had often puzzled of late, as to how it was that she loved so strange a man, and loved him despite the disapproval of her people.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

That night—I tell you now what it would be a bitter thing for me to tell in a court of law—I was restless and sleepless, as often happens when a man has kept awake over long.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Often when she woke Jo found Beth reading in her well-worn little book, heard her singing softly, to beguile the sleepless night, or saw her lean her face upon her hands, while slow tears dropped through the transparent fingers, and Jo would lie watching her with thoughts too deep for tears, feeling that Beth, in her simple, unselfish way, was trying to wean herself from the dear old life, and fit herself for the life to come, by sacred words of comfort, quiet prayers, and the music she loved so well.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

A team led by neuroscientist Michele Bellesi from the Marche Polytechnic University in Italy examined the mammalian brain's response to poor sleeping habits, and found a bizarre similarity between the well-rested and sleepless mice.