Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A deep, lethargic, or unnatural sleep.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A deep, unnatural sleep; lethargy; stupor.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Med.) Profound sleep from which a person can be roused only with difficulty.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun an unnaturally deep sleep

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a torpid state resembling deep sleep

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin; see swep- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

  • All adversity finds ease in complaining (as [3421] Isidore holds), and 'tis a solace to relate it, [3422] Ἀγαθὴ δε ἐταίρου. Friends 'confabulations are comfortable at all times, as fire in winter, shade in summer, quale sopor fessis in gramine, meat and drink to him that is hungry or athirst;

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • Et fuit, sole occumbente sopor cecidit super Abram: et ecce, terror tenebrosus et magnus cadens super eum.

    Commentary on Genesis - Volume 1 1509-1564 1996

  • They dispose to sopor, lethargy, and even insanity.

    Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure William Thomas Fernie

  • Before the nailing to the cross took place, a medicated cup of vinegar mixed with gall and myrrh (the sopor) was given, for the purpose of deadening the pangs of the sufferer.

    Easton's Bible Dictionary M.G. Easton 1897

  • I'm sure they even managed to help some of the regulars shake off their seemingly implacable offseason sopor.

    Pounding The Rock 2009

  • a chump of the evums, upshoot of picnic or stupor out of sopor, Cave of Kids or Hyma-nian Glattstoneburg, denary, danery, donnery,

    Finnegans Wake 2006

  • a state of sopor, which had lasted a day and a half; there had been delirium for two or three days, during which time the child had never had a clear moment.

    Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms Charles Munde

  • I. 24), when a friend of signal nobleness and purity is suddenly struck down -- "_Ergo Quinctilium perpetuus sopor urget_?"

    Horace Theodore Martin 1862

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