Word.ws English Dictionary

sleep debts

UK/ˌsliːp ˈdets/US/ˌslip ˈdɛts/

sleep debts is the plural of sleep debt.

Meaning of sleep debt

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

Questions about sleep debts

What is sleep debts the plural of?
Sleep debts is the plural of sleep debt.
How do you pronounce sleep debts?
Sleep debts is pronounced /ˌsliːp ˈdets/ (UK).

Words near sleep debts in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sleep debts (page history and authors); 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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Cite this entry: “sleep debts.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sleep_debts. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.