Dictionary

dead sleep en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (US) audio

Meanings

1. (uncountable, usually) A particularly sound sleep
2. (uncountable, usually) The first sleep of the night in a biphasic sleep pattern, before the watch.
   • Until the close of the early modern era, Western Europeans on most evenings experienced two major intervals of sleep bridged by up to an hour or more of quiet wakefulness. […] The initial interval of slumber was usually referred to as “first sleep,” or, less often, “first nap” or “dead sleep.” 2001 April, A. Roger Ekirch, “Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-Industrial Slumber in the British Isles”, in The American Historical Review, volume 106, number 2, American Historical Association, page 364:

Forms

Coordinates

morning sleep

Synonyms

first sleep

Translations (4)

it primo sonno (first sleep) · la concubia nocte (first sleep) · fr premier somme (first sleep) · la primus somnus (first sleep)