Word.ws English Dictionary

sleep debt

UK/ˌsliːp ˈdet//ˌslip ˈdɛt/

sleep debt noun: the cumulative effect of not obtaining enough sleep, especially as seen as able to be made up for by sleeping more than usual.

Noun

sleep debt (countable and uncountable, plural sleep debts)

  1. The cumulative effect of not obtaining enough sleep, especially as seen as able to be made up for by sleeping more than usual.
    • Adenosine levels can be quickly righted after a few nights of good sleep, however. This gave rise to a scientific consensus that sleep debt could be forgiven with a couple of quality snoozes — as reflected in casual statements like “I’ll catch up on sleep” or “I’ll be more awake tomorrow.”2022 June 24, Oliver Whang, “The Sleep Debt Collector Is Here”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
    Synonyms:
    sleep deficit

Synonyms of sleep debt

Forms of sleep debt

pluralsleep debts

Questions about sleep debt

What does sleep debt mean?
Sleep debt means the cumulative effect of not obtaining enough sleep, especially as seen as able to be made up for by sleeping more than usual.
What part of speech is sleep debt?
Sleep debt is a noun.
How do you pronounce sleep debt?
Sleep debt is pronounced /ˌsliːp ˈdet/ (UK).
What is the plural of sleep debt?
The plural of sleep debt is sleep debts.

Words near sleep debt in the dictionary

  1. sleep black
  2. sleep camel
  3. sleep camels
  4. sleep cap
  5. sleep caps
  6. sleep debt
  7. sleep debts
  8. sleep deficit
  9. sleep deficits
  10. sleep dep
  11. sleep deprivation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sleep debt (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-sleep debt.wav.

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