sleeper

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. One that sleeps: a heavy sleeper who was not wakened by the burglar.
2. n. A sleeping car.
3. n. Children's pajamas, usually with legs that cover the feet. Often used in the plural.
4. n. One that achieves unexpected recognition or success, as a racehorse or movie.
5. n. A spy or saboteur who is planted in an enemy country and who lives unobtrusively as a citizen of that country until activated into clandestine operations by a prearranged signal.
6. n. A horizontal structural member on or near the ground that supports weight.
7. n. Chiefly British A railroad crosstie.
8. n. Any of various usually small marine and freshwater fishes of the family Eleotridae, related to the gobies but lacking a sucking disk and noted for their habit of lying immobile.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. One who sleeps: as, a sound sleeper.
2. n. A drone, or lazy person; a sluggard.
3. n. A dormant or inoperative thing; something that is in abeyance or is latent.
4. n. An animal that lies dormant in winter or summer, as the bear, the marmot, certain mollusks, etc. See sleep, n., 4.
5. n. Figuratively, a dead person.
6. n. plural Grains of barley that do not vegetate in malting.
7. n. A railway sleeping-car.
8. n. In zoology:
9. n. The dormouse, Myoxus avellanarius.
10. n. The sleeper-shark, Somniosus microcephalus, and some related species, as Ginglymostoma cirratum.
11. n. A gobioid fish of the genus Philypnus, Eleotris, or Dormitator, as D. lineatus or D. maculatus. See Elcotridinæ.
12. n. A stump of a tree cut off short and left In the ground.
13. n. A beam of wood or the like placed on the ground as a support for something. In carpentry, a piece of timber on which are laid the ground-joists of a floor; a beam on or near the ground, or on a low cross-wall, for the support of some superstructure.
14. n. In ship-building, a thick piece of timber placed longitudinally in a ship's hold, opposite the several scarfs of the timbers, for strengthening the bows and stern-frame; a piece of long compass-timber fayed and bolted diagonally upon the transoms.
15. n. In glass-making, one of the large iron bars crossing the smaller ones, which hinder the passage of coals, but leave room for the ashes.
16. n. In weaving, the upper part of the heddle of a draw-loom, through which the threads pass.
17. n. In faro, a bet left upon a card which the case-keeper shows is dead. Such a bet is public property and the first one to see it can take it.

Wiktionary

1. n. Someone who sleeps.
2. n. A spy, saboteur, or terrorist who lives unobtrusively in a community until activated by a prearranged signal; may be part of a sleeper cell.
3. n. A railroad sleeping car.
4. n. Something that achieves unexpected success after an interval of time.
5. n. A goby-like bottom-feeding freshwater fish of the family Odontobutidae. Also "sleeper goby."
6. n. A type of pajama for a person, especially a child, that covers the whole body, including the feet.
7. n. An automobile which, not too quick out of the factory has been internally modified to excess, while retaining a mostly stock appearance in order to fool opponents in a drag race.
8. n. rail transport, UK A railroad tie. . The short wooden bars are sleepers, and the long metal bars are railway lines.
9. n. carpentry A structural beam in a floor running perpendicular to both the joists beneath and floorboards above.
10. n. nautical A heavy floor timber in a ship's bottom.
11. n. nautical The lowest, or bottom, tier of casks.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. One who sleeps; a slumberer; hence, a drone, or lazy person.
2. n. obsolete That which lies dormant, as a law.
3. n. Colloq. U.S. A sleeping car.
4. n. (Zoöl.) An animal that hibernates, as the bear.
5. n. A large fresh-water gobioid fish (Eleotris dormatrix).
6. n. A nurse shark. See under Nurse.
7. n. Something lying in a reclining posture or position.
8. n. One of the pieces of timber, stone, or iron, on or near the level of the ground, for the support of some superstructure, to steady framework, to keep in place the rails of a railway, etc.; a stringpiece.
9. n. U.S. One of the joists, or roughly shaped timbers, laid directly upon the ground, to receive the flooring of the ground story.
10. n. (Naut.) One of the knees which connect the transoms to the after timbers on the ship's quarter.
11. n. (Naut.) The lowest, or bottom, tier of casks.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a passenger car that has berths for sleeping
2. n. pajamas with feet; worn by children
3. n. a piece of furniture that can be opened up into a bed
4. n. tropical fish that resembles a goby and rests quietly on the bottom in shallow water
5. n. a spy or saboteur or terrorist planted in an enemy country who lives there as a law-abiding citizen until activated by a prearranged signal
6. n. an unexpected achiever of success
7. n. one of the cross braces that support the rails on a railway track
8. n. an unexpected hit
9. n. a rester who is sleeping