big sleep en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- (US) audio
Etymology
Apparently coined by novelist Raymond Chandler, author of The Big Sleep (1939).
Meanings
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(euphemistic, idiomatic, qualifier:almost always preceded by the) Death.
What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that.
1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, Penguin, published 2011, page 250:Before I sink into the big sleep / I want to hear / The scream of the butterfly
1967, “When the Music’s Over”, in Strange Days, performed by The Doors:
Synonyms
fall · liquidation · exit · end · defunction · doom · sunset · dematerialization · decease · mortality · demise · quietus · the big sleep · crash · tomb · downfall · sleep of the just · fatality · dirt nap · sleep of the just · decomposition · celestial transfer · (the) bane · expiration · (the) end · passing · death · repose · dirt nap
Translations (1)
fi ikiuni (type of sleep used as euphemism for death)