Word.ws English Dictionary

sleep rough

UK/ˌsliːp ˈɹʌf//ˌslip ˈɹʌf/

sleep rough verb: of a homeless person, to sleep outdoors, particularly as opposed to sleeping in a shelter or similar.

sleep rough: of a homeless person, to sleep outdoors, particularly as opposed to sleeping in a shelter or similar
Image: O'Dea, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

sleep rough (third-person singular simple present sleeps rough, present participle sleeping rough, simple past and past participle slept rough)

  1. (idiomatic) Of a homeless person, to sleep outdoors, particularly as opposed to sleeping in a shelter or similar.
    • I will warrant they prove such roaring boys as I knew when I served under Lumford and Goring, [...] —sleeping rough on the trenches, and dying stubbornly in their boats. Ah! those merry days are gone.1826, [Walter Scott], chapter IV, in Woodstock; Or, The Cavalier. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and...
    • [...] I was quite taken out of myself and vowed a vow there to go to Rome on Pilgrimage and see all Europe which the Christian Faith has saved; and I said, "I will start from the place where I served in arms for my sins; I will walk all the way and take advantage of no wheeled thing; I will sleep...1902, H[ilaire] Belloc, “Praise of This Book”, in The Path to Rome, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co.; London: George Allen, page viii, →OCLC

Examples of sleep rough in a sentence

  • Tents and mattresses lining the streets of towns and cities across the country, home to people forced to sleep rough, have become an increasingly common sight.2018 October 28, “The Observer view on the budget and the decade of austerity”, in The Observer, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN...
  • They sleep rough nearby under duvets and sleeping bags, lying next to each other to keep warm.2023 December 22, Robyn Vinter, “‘That’s how we’ve got to live’: the black market in England’s shoplifting capital”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

Synonyms of sleep rough

Forms of sleep rough

third-person singular presentsleeps rough
present participlesleeping rough
past participleslept rough
pastslept rough

Origin of sleep rough

From sleep (verb) + rough (“in a rough manner, roughly”, adverb) (a reference to the uncomfortable situation of sleeping outdoors).

Words formed from sleep rough

Questions about sleep rough

What does sleep rough mean?
Sleep rough means of a homeless person, to sleep outdoors, particularly as opposed to sleeping in a shelter or similar.
How do you use sleep rough in a sentence?
Tents and mattresses lining the streets of towns and cities across the country, home to people forced to sleep rough, have become an increasingly common sight.
What part of speech is sleep rough?
Sleep rough is a verb.
How do you pronounce sleep rough?
Sleep rough is pronounced /ˌsliːp ˈɹʌf/ (UK).
What is the past tense of sleep rough?
The past tense of sleep rough is slept rough.

Words near sleep rough in the dictionary

  1. sleep over
  2. sleep paralyses
  3. sleep paralysis
  4. sleep pressure
  5. sleep regression
  6. sleep rough
  7. sleep schedule
  8. sleep schedules
  9. sleep shorts
  10. sleep spindle
  11. sleep spindles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sleep rough (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-sleep rough.mp3, En-au-sleep rough.ogg.

Cite this entry: “sleep rough.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sleep_rough. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.