Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. One that sleeps: a heavy sleeper who was not wakened by the burglar.
- n. A sleeping car.
- n. Children's pajamas, usually with legs that cover the feet. Often used in the plural.
- n. One that achieves unexpected recognition or success, as a racehorse or movie.
- 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.
- n. A horizontal structural member on or near the ground that supports weight.
- n. Chiefly British A railroad crosstie.
- 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
- n. One who sleeps: as, a sound sleeper.
- n. A drone, or lazy person; a sluggard.
- n. A dormant or inoperative thing; something that is in abeyance or is latent.
- n. An animal that lies dormant in winter or summer, as the bear, the marmot, certain mollusks, etc. See sleep, n., 4.
- n. Figuratively, a dead person.
- n. plural Grains of barley that do not vegetate in malting.
- n. A railway sleeping-car.
- n. In zoology:
- n. The dormouse, Myoxus avellanarius.
- n. The sleeper-shark, Somniosus microcephalus, and some related species, as Ginglymostoma cirratum.
- n. A gobioid fish of the genus Philypnus, Eleotris, or Dormitator, as D. lineatus or D. maculatus. See Elcotridinæ.
- n. A stump of a tree cut off short and left In the ground.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- n. In weaving, the upper part of the heddle of a draw-loom, through which the threads pass.
- 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
- n. Someone who sleeps.
- 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.
- n. A railroad sleeping car.
- n. Something that achieves unexpected success after an interval of time.
- n. A goby-like bottom-feeding freshwater fish of the family Odontobutidae. Also "sleeper goby."
- n. A type of pajama for a person, especially a child, that covers the whole body, including the feet.
- 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.
- n. rail transport, UK A railroad tie. . The short wooden bars are sleepers, and the long metal bars are railway lines.
- n. carpentry A structural beam in a floor running perpendicular to both the joists beneath and floorboards above.
- n. nautical A heavy floor timber in a ship's bottom.
- n. nautical The lowest, or bottom, tier of casks.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. One who sleeps; a slumberer; hence, a drone, or lazy person.
- n. obsolete That which lies dormant, as a law.
- n. Colloq. U.S. A sleeping car.
- n. (Zoöl.) An animal that hibernates, as the bear.
- n. A large fresh-water gobioid fish (Eleotris dormatrix).
- n. A nurse shark. See under Nurse.
- n. Something lying in a reclining posture or position.
- 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.
- n. U.S. One of the joists, or roughly shaped timbers, laid directly upon the ground, to receive the flooring of the ground story.
- n. (Naut.) One of the knees which connect the transoms to the after timbers on the ship's quarter.
- n. (Naut.) The lowest, or bottom, tier of casks.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a passenger car that has berths for sleeping
- n. pajamas with feet; worn by children
- n. a piece of furniture that can be opened up into a bed
- n. tropical fish that resembles a goby and rests quietly on the bottom in shallow water
- 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
- n. an unexpected achiever of success
- n. one of the cross braces that support the rails on a railway track
- n. an unexpected hit
- n. a rester who is sleeping
Etymologies
- Compare Norwegian sleip ("a sleeper (a timber); as adjective, slippery, smooth"). See slape. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The term sleeper has simply taken on a new meaning and sleepers themselves are a bit harder to find.”
The Huffington Post: Jeff Ma: Who Sleeps in Fantasy Football?
“Four years after that FBI report was written, the word sleeper moved from spookspeak jargon into the general language.”
Simon & Schuster: The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time
“I've been looking and looking and all I can find for the Caledonia sleeper is the listing sandwiches, snacks, and a full British menu.”
“But for Red Line's money, the true definition of a sleeper is a guy who probably won't get selected that high, but has a chance to develop into one of the better players at his position in the draft.”
“But for Red Line's money, the true definition of a sleeper is a guy who won't get selected that high but has a chance to develop into one of the better players at his position in the draft.”
“You what we call a sleeper troll, writing all these pro-Obama, pro-liberal comments to make the community think you're one of them, and then wham! you hit us with the brillance of the Repub philosophy.”
“But we're learning more and more that there is what they call a sleeper effect to divorce.”
“The only thing better than a sleeper is a sleeper with speed.”
“I hate using this term sleeper, but he just turned 17," Steckel said.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘sleeper’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Bad Options
words for those who commit particular crimes: i.e., bank robber, arsonist, etc.
liar, cheat, traitor, arsonist, felon, braggard, thief, profiteer, impostor, phony, fraud, culprit and 212 more...
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®emovies
Movies or TV shows where the titles are also common words, generally one-word titles.
lost, alien, bug, elephant, siege, gladiator, flock, captivity, piano, roots, freaks, moonstruck and 269 more...
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Words that are also movies
Unabashedly stolen from a comment made by courier12.
vertigo, serendipity, casablanca, psycho, jaws, fantasia, stagecoach, network, rocky, giant, platoon, unforgiven and 285 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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It's a Fish
kelpfish, fatfin, dollarfish, barrelfish, palometa, poppy-fish, ballan-wrasse, sweetlips, bichir, finpike, bergall, cunner and 192 more...
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IMCO - EU nomenclature
includes words of the "Prodcom list"
veal, valve, used, yak, wax, wan, teak, vat, vas, strip, use, strap and 4515 more...
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PECH - marine species
African cuttlefish, Alaska plaice, Alaska pollock, Alaska pollack, walleye pollock, alewife, gaspereau, river herring, sawbelly, allis shad, American angler, goosefish and 994 more...
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by train
Bits and pieces of train engines, cars and carriages. Terms for various types of trains and train cars live here toot I mean too.
jaw-bit, truck-bolster, arch-bar, car-truck, swing-motion, horn-plate, pedestal, axle-guard, car-body, rolling-stock, swing-hanger, spring-plank and 140 more...
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Some Ship-building Terms
Ship builders' terms, from stem to stern (these words aren't on the list).
coping, chock, filling, sponson, spale, shore, deck-beam, beam, round-up, shelf, ribband, sny and 248 more...
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New Grims
Grim __________.
Cousins of the Grim Reaper.
Two-syllable words that begin with Re (not necessarily as a prefix) and end with R. Also, two-syllable words that rhyme with r...repair, refer, reader, renter, reeker, reacher, sleeper, keeper, beeper, creeper, reaver, rester and 10 more...
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bad guys
black hat, thug, thugz, highwayman, brigand, pirate, corsair, raider, viking, visigoth, vandal, gangster and 46 more...
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Movies I've Seen
There's a jar I've been adding movie ticket stubs to since about age twelve. I am pleased to have a more accessible way of keeping track of the movies I've seen. Even if some are pretty embarrassin...
ghostbusters, amadeus, miller's crossing, no reservations, hoot, insomnia, master and commander, the matrix, o brother, where ..., night of the comet, the dark knight, tropic thunder and 489 more...
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Castles and Keeps
Shamelessly ripped off from this site and others (to be named hereinafter). (Fair warning: for my own edification, I may add definitions/comments from the site, but you might want to just go there ...
abutment, adulterine, allure, angle-spur, apse, arbalest, arbalestier, arbalist, arcade, arch, armoury, arrow slit and 410 more...
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Loaded Dice
Off the straight and narrow; less than straight arrow.
chicanery, sophistry, pilfer, rook, diddle, fleece, grift, poach, rustle, pinch, abscond, steal and 140 more...
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Tuesday words
just the next words that come along
nasality, transignification, lapsarian, disciple, slanguage, atwitter, avast, ahoy, asleep, awake, hymnody, glissade and 573 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for sleeper.

oroboros Repeels in reverse. Nov 2, 2007