• IPA^(key):/ˈsliːpɪŋ/

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• Rhymes:-iːpɪŋ

sleeping

1. presentparticiple andgerund ofsleep
   • 1963,Margery Allingham, chapter 20, inThe China Governess: A Mystery, London:Chatto & Windus,→OCLC:

     ‘No. I only opened the door a foot and put my head in. The street lamps shine into that room. I could see him. He was all right.Sleeping like a great grampus. Poor, poor chap.’

sleeping (notcomparable)

1. Asleep.
   • 2013 July 19,Ian Sample, “Irregular bedtimes may affect children's brains”, inThe Guardian Weekly, volume189, number 6, page34:

     Irregular bedtimes may disrupt healthy brain development in young children, according to a study of intelligence andsleeping habits.  ¶ Going to bed at a different time each night affected girls more than boys, but both fared worse on mental tasks than children who had a set bedtime, researchers found.

2. Used for sleep; used to produce sleep.

sleeping (countable anduncountable,pluralsleepings)

1. The state of being asleep, or an instance of this.
   • c.1380,William Langland,The Vision of Piers Plowman, section I:

     And as I lay and lened and loked in the wateres / I slombred in aslepyng, it swyved so merye.

   • 1995, Angela Carter,The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, page144:

     […] there are no words to describe the way she negotiated the abyss between her dreams, those wakings strange as hersleepings.

• peelings,speeling

sleeping m (pluralsleepings)

1. sleeping car

   Synonym:wagon-lit

• “sleeping”, inTrésor de la langue française informatisé[Digitized Treasury of the French Language],2012.