| Library / English Dictionary |
FALL ASLEEP
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (verb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Change from a waking to a sleeping state
Example:
he always falls asleep during lectures
Synonyms:
dope off; doze off; drift off; drop off; drowse off; fall asleep; flake out; nod off
Classified under:
Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care
Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "fall asleep"):
zonk out (fall asleep fast, as when one is extremely tired)
Sentence frame:
Somebody ----s
Antonym:
wake up (stop sleeping)
Context examples:
Laurie lifted his eyebrows and followed at a leisurely pace as she ran downstairs, but when they got into the carriage he took the reins himself, and left little Baptiste nothing to do but fold his arms and fall asleep on his perch.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
It can: • Make you jittery and shaky • Make it hard to fall asleep or stay asleep • Cause headaches or dizziness • Make your heart beat faster or cause abnormal heart rhythms • Cause dehydration • Make you dependent on it so you need to take more of it.
(Caffeine, Food and Drug Administration)
Then the twelfth of the friendly fairies, who had not yet given her gift, came forward, and said that the evil wish must be fulfilled, but that she could soften its mischief; so her gift was, that the king’s daughter, when the spindle wounded her, should not really die, but should only fall asleep for a hundred years.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
We will bring the little girl with us, but if you should fall asleep you are too big to be carried.
(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)
It might be two hours later, probably near eleven, when I—not having been able to fall asleep, and deeming, from the perfect silence of the dormitory, that my companions were all wrapt in profound repose—rose softly, put on my frock over my night-dress, and, without shoes, crept from the apartment, and set off in quest of Miss Temple's room.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
