# slumber
## English
### Alternative forms

* slumbre (obsolete)

### Etymology

From Middle English slombren, slomren, frequentative of Middle English slummen, slumen (“to doze”), probably from Middle English slume (“slumber”), from Old English slūma, from Proto-Germanic *slūm- (“slack, loose, limp, flabby”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)lew- (“loose, limp, flabby”), equivalent to sloom +‎ -er. Cognate with West Frisian slommerje, slûmerje (“to slumber”), Dutch sluimeren (“to slumber”), German schlummern (“to slumber, doze”), Swedish slummer (“to slumber”).

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈslʌm.bə/
* (General American) enPR: slŭmʹbər, IPA: /ˈslʌm.bɚ/
** Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -ʌmbə(ɹ)
* Hyphenation: slum‧ber

### Noun

slumber (plural slumbers)
* A very light state of sleep, almost awake.
** 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:Fast asleep? It is no matter; / Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber.
** 1665 (first performance), John Dryden, The Indian Emperour, or, The Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. […], London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for H[enry] Herringman […], published 1667, →OCLC, Act III, scene ii, page 29:Ev’n Luſt and Envy ſleep, yet Love denies / Reſt to my Soul, and ſlumber to my Eyes.
** 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], London: […] Nath[aniel] Ponder […], →OCLC:He at last fell into a slumber, and thence into a fast sleep, which detained him in that place until it was almost night.
* (figurative) A state of ignorance or inaction.
** 2009, Ben-Ami Scharfstein, Art without borders: a philosophical exploration of art and humanity:Marcel Duchamp's urinal and readymades seemed in the beginning to be insider jokes or jokelike paradoxes meant to awaken people from their aesthetic slumbers.
* (rare, as used by Magnavox clock radios) The snooze button on an alarm clock.

#### Derived terms

* slumbercoach, slumber coach
* slumberlike

#### Translations
### Verb

slumber (third-person singular simple present slumbers, present participle slumbering, simple past and past participle slumbered)
* (intransitive) To be in a very light state of sleep, almost awake.
** 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalm 121:4:He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
** 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, Canto XLII, page 65:If Sleep and Death be truly one, ⁠And every spirit’s folded bloom ⁠Thro’ all its intervital gloom In some long trance should slumber on; […]
* (intransitive) To be inactive or negligent.
* (transitive, obsolete) To lay to sleep.
** 1642, Henry Wotton, A Short View of the Life and Death of George Villers, Duke of Buckingham:slumber his conscience
* (transitive, obsolete) To stun; to stupefy.
** 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:Then vp he tooke the slombred sencelesse corse.

#### Translations
### See also

* catnap
* doze
* nap
* shuteye
* slumber party

### Anagrams

* Blumers, Bulmers, Burslem, Rumbles, lumbers, rumbles, slumbre, umbrels