fall asleep
verb1
To pass from a state of wakefulness into sleep.
- She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact, drowsily realizing that since she had fallen asleep it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky.1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter II (Burglary), page 378, column 1:
2
Figuratively, Idiomatic To be affected by paresthesia; to go numb.
- My left leg has fallen asleep!
3
Euphemistic, Poetic To die (often seen on gravestones).
- And he kneeled downe, and cried with a loud voice, Lord lay not this sinne to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleepe. And Saul was consenting vnto his death.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Acts 7:60:
- Synonyms
- drift off, drop off, go to sleep, nod off, pass, pass away, pass over, crash out, doze off, fall asleep, get off, go night-night, nod out, sack out, zone
- Derived terms
- fall asleep in the Lord
- Related terms
- put to sleep, faint, pass out, sleep, go to bed