1. The part of speech.
Sleep is both a noun and a verb.
As a noun, it is usually uncountable (meaning 1). This is marked by a [U]. However, in meaning 3, it is countable, e.g. a deep sleep.
As a verb, it is usually intransitive (an intransitive verb doesn't have a direct object, and is marked with [I]). Meaning 2 is a special use of the word 'sleep', which is used when talking about the number of beds in a certain place, e.g. This apartment sleeps four. This is a transitive verb [T] and therefore requires an object.
You can see the whole word family here, including sleepy, sleepless, sleeper, sleepily and sleepiness.
2. Information about pronunciation.
Click [Show phonetics] to see the phonetic symbols. Even if you do not understand the symbols, it is useful to see where the stress is. The main stress comes after '.
There is no sound with this dictionary. However, the American online dictionary Merriam-Webster lets you listen to the pronunciation (in American English, of course!).
3. The definition
If there is a word you don't understand, you can double-click to read the meaning and then hit the 'Back' button.
4. How to use the word in a sentence.
You can see verb structures, e.g. go/get to sleep.
Collocations (words that go together) are shown in bold, such as a light sleeper.
Example sentences are provided to help feel more confident about using the word correctly.
5. Useful expressions
Here, you can see the expressions sleep like a log and sleep rough. There are also links to words that are related to sleep, such as oversleep and sleepwalker.
6. Important contextual information
INFORMAL - such as sleep like a log
UK - sleep rough is a British English expression.
Other important notes you might see include:
US, AUSTRALIAN, OFFENSIVE (=impolite language!), FORMAL, OLD-FASHIONED (=not commonly used today) & OLD USE(=not used at all today).
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