sleeping partner
noun1
Ireland, UK A business partner who doesn't play an active role in running the day-to-day operations of a business, who instead, finances the business in the form of capital investment.
- Somewhat later, the Frenchman Charles Fourier was ridiculed for expecting day by day the sleeping-partner to turn up who would invest in his Phalanstère plan, which was based on ideas very similar to those sponsored by one of the greatest contemporary experts on finance.1957 [1944], Karl Polanyi, chapter 9, in The Great Transformation, Beacon Press: Boston, page 108: