Dictionary

sleep camel en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Etymology

Perhaps an analogy of a person's storing sleep to a camel's storing water.

Meanings

1. (idiomatic, slang) A person who habitually does with little to no sleep during the week and then makes up by sleeping a lot during the weekend.
   • Silicon Valley has bred 'sleep camels', who store up sleep at the weekends then work long hours all week. 2001, Richard Reeves, Happy Mondays: Putting the Pleasure Back Into Work, Pearson Education Limited, →ISBN:
   • No wonder, then, that so many take their laptops to the beach or that 'sleep camels', as they call them in Silicon Valley, those who sleep only at weekends, are becoming more common. 2001, Charles B. Handy, The Elephant and the Flea: Reflections of a Reluctant Capitalist, Harvard Business School Press, published 2002, →ISBN, page 100:
   • Sheila told her that John said musicians were like sleep camels when it came to that. They could stay awake for days when they had to. 2014, Rocky F. Catman, Meet Me at the Riverside, Lulu, →ISBN, page 198:

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