sleepy
/ˈsliːpi
/adjective (sleepier, sleepiest)
1Needing or ready for sleep: the wine had made her sleepy...
- Your circadian rhythm is regulated by a biological clock in your brain that usually makes you sleepy at night and ready to wake up in the morning.
- He sat down beside her, holding her hand as she lay down on the couch, already looking sleepy, yet ready to go back home.
- I awoke much later but kept my eyes closed, I still felt a bit sleepy and wasn't ready to start work just yet.
Synonyms
drowsy, tired, somnolent, languid, languorous, heavy-eyed, dozy, nodding, asleep on one's feet, yawning;
lethargic, sluggish, inactive, enervated, torpid, comatose
informal snoozy, dopey, yawny
literary slumberous
rare oscitant, slumbersome
1.1Showing the effects of sleep: she rubbed her sleepy eyes...
- Lazily, I stood up, stretched my sleepy muscles and went upstairs.
- ‘I wonder if there's hope out there,’ said Eleto as he stretched and let out a sleepy yawn.
- Stretching forth her sleepy limbs she yawns in tiredness.
1.2Inducing sleep; soporific: the sleepy heat of the afternoon...
- The incense had been burning for a while now, and the damp cottage was full of the sleepy, hypnotic smell that goes with magical workings.
- We were all tired; the sleepy effects of night took their toll on us.
- Cliff's generally most effective when he's most gentle, and this sleepy ballad does its job with smoochy aplomb.
Synonyms
soporific, sleep-inducing, somnolent, hypnotic
1.3(Of a place) without much activity: he turned off the road into a sleepy little town...
- The Great Winchester Gun Riot of May 1908 almost sounds like a joke, a self-mocking send-up of the usually sleepy county town.
- The normally sleepy port town of Lüderitz is expected for once to awake from its slumber when President San Nujoma visits the town next week.
- What propelled Racine from sleepy farm town to 20th-century Florence of the Heartland?
Synonyms
quiet, peaceful, tranquil, placid, slow-moving, inactive;
dull, boring, backwater, backwoods
informal one-horse
1.4(Of a business or organization) lacking the ability or will to respond to change; not dynamic: the one-time sleepy world of pensions...
- They ensured that senior staff were rewarded for their efforts and, in 10 years, transformed the firm from a sleepy business into a thriving success story.
- The shock of being ditched from the stock exchange seems to have worked wonders for its sleepy management and forced it to make changes.
- They did not fail because management was sleepy or arrogant.
Derivatives
sleepily
/ adverb ...- It looked so hopelessly harmless, the way it was lying around sleepily.
- I dawdled by the carriages as the crowds loped sleepily off the train and homewards, frantically scouring the scene for Max.
- My shriek woke the children, who arrived, sleepily, below the hatch.