Word.ws English Dictionary

fall asleep

fall asleep verb: to pass from a state of wakefulness into sleep.

Verb

fall asleep (third-person singular simple present falls asleep, present participle falling asleep, simple past fell asleep, past participle fallen asleep)

  1. To pass from a state of wakefulness into sleep.
    • She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact, drowsily realizing that since she had fallen asleep it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky.1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter II...
    Synonyms:
    drift off
  2. (figuratively, idiomatic) To be affected by paresthesia; to go numb.
    • My left leg has fallen asleep!
  3. (euphemistic, poetic) To die (often seen on gravestones).
    • And he kneeled downe, and cried with a loud voice, Lord lay not this sinne to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleepe. And Saul was consenting vnto his death.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Acts 7:60

fall asleep meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam

fall asleep in Hindi

to pass into sleep
सो जाना so jānā, नींद में पड़ना nīnd mẽ paṛnā, नींद आना nīnd ānā

fall asleep in Tamil

to pass into sleep
துங்கிப்போ tuṅkippō
to be affected by paresthesia
மரத்து போ marattu pō

fall asleep in Urdu

to fall asleep
سونا sonā

fall asleep in Malayalam

go to sleep, doze off, nod off
നിദ്രയിൽ വീഴുക, ഉറക്കത്തിലേക്കു വീഴുക, ഉറക്കത്തിലാവുക, ഉറങ്ങുക, കൺപൊലിയുക, കൺമയങ്ങുക
More languagesFewer languages
fall asleep in Tagalog
makatulog
fall asleep in Arabic
غَلَّبَ النُعَاس ḡallaba n-nuʕās, نَامَ nāma, اِسْتَغْرَقَ فِي النَّوْم istaḡraqa fī n-nawm, غَفَا ḡafā
fall asleep in Indonesian
ketiduran
fall asleep in Thai
หลับไป làp bpai, โงก ngôok, หลับ làp
fall asleep in Vietnamese
ngủ gục

Synonyms of fall asleep

4 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of fall asleep

Forms of fall asleep

third-person singular presentfalls asleep
present participlefalling asleep
pastfell asleep
past participlefallen asleep

Words formed from fall asleep

Questions about fall asleep

What does fall asleep mean?
Fall asleep means to pass from a state of wakefulness into sleep.
What is fall asleep in Hindi?
Fall asleep in Hindi is सो जाना (so jānā), नींद में पड़ना (nīnd mẽ paṛnā), नींद आना (nīnd ānā). See Fall asleep meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is fall asleep?
Fall asleep is a verb.
What is the past tense of fall asleep?
The past tense of fall asleep is fell asleep.

Words near fall asleep in the dictionary

  1. fall among
  2. fall apart
  3. fall armyworm
  4. fall armyworms
  5. fall around
  6. fall asleep
  7. fall asleep in the Lord
  8. Fall aster
  9. Fall asters
  10. fall at the final hurdle
  11. fall at the last hurdle

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fall asleep (page history and authors); سونا (Urdu) (page history and authors); fall asleep (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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.

Last updated:

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

Cite this entry: “fall asleep.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fall_asleep. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.