Word.ws English Dictionary

coldsleep

coldsleep noun: a deep sleep during which the body is stored at very cold temperature, to preserve it; cryogenic sleep.

Noun

coldsleep (uncountable)

  1. A deep sleep during which the body is stored at very cold temperature, to preserve it; cryogenic sleep.
    • By converting some of the recreation space to storerooms and adapting the storerooms thus cleared to the purpose of cold-sleep, the ship was roomy enough.1941 August, Robert A. Heinlein, “Methuselah's Children”, in John W. Campbell, editor, Astounding Science-Fiction, volume 27, number 6
    • He had always believed Arcadia lovely, an undespoiled planet waiting for man like a bride, more than worth decades in coldsleep aboard a spaceship, toil and danger of pioneering, isolation from the rest of humankind.1968 September, Poul Anderson, “The Faun”, in Boys' Life, volume 58, number 9, page 33

Verb

coldsleep (third-person singular simple present coldsleeps, present participle coldsleeping, simple past and past participle coldslept)

  1. To experience deep sleep whilst the body is stored at a very cold temperature; to engage in cryogenic sleep.
    • Damnation, he was quite capable of refusing to let me cold-sleep.1956 October, Robert A. Heinlein, “The Door into Summer”, in Anthony Boucher, editor, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, volume 11, number 4
    • The escape capsule in which he'd cold-slept had had another minor malfunction that left him staring drugged and half conscious through the port glass at open space for two days before the cryogenic process had kicked in.1990, Anne McCaffrey, Jody Lynn Nye, The Death of Sleep
    Synonyms:
    cryopreserve

Synonyms of coldsleep

Forms of coldsleep

Noun
alternative formcold sleep
Verb
third-person singular presentcoldsleeps
present participlecoldsleeping
past participlecoldslept
pastcoldslept

Origin of coldsleep

From cold + sleep.

Questions about coldsleep

What does coldsleep mean?
Coldsleep means a deep sleep during which the body is stored at very cold temperature, to preserve it; cryogenic sleep.
What part of speech is coldsleep?
Coldsleep can be a noun or a verb.

Words near coldsleep in the dictionary

  1. coldrife
  2. colds
  3. coldshoulder
  4. coldshoulders
  5. coldslaw
  6. coldsleep
  7. coldsleeping
  8. coldsleeps
  9. coldslept
  10. coldsome
  11. coldspot

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: coldsleep (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-coldsleep.wav.

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