Word.ws English Dictionary

sleeping at the switch

sleeping at the switch is the alternative form of asleep at the switch.

Meaning of asleep at the switch

Adjective

asleep at the switch

  1. (idiomatic) Neglectful of an important task, responsibility, or opportunity.
    • His vote demonstrates that the people of Philadelphia are not asleep at the switch, are not indifferent to their political duties.1909, Clinton Rogers Woodruff, “Municipal Review 1907-1908,”, in The American Journal of Sociology, volume 14, number 4, page 488

Questions about sleeping at the switch

What is sleeping at the switch the alternative form of?
Sleeping at the switch is the alternative form of asleep at the switch.

Words near sleeping at the switch in the dictionary

  1. sleepiness
  2. sleepinesses
  3. sleeping
  4. sleeping a wink
  5. sleeping around
  6. sleeping at the switch
  7. sleeping bag
  8. sleeping bags
  9. sleeping barber problem
  10. sleeping barber problems
  11. sleeping beauties

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sleeping at the switch (page history and authors); asleep at the switch (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: En-au-sleeping at the switch.ogg.

Cite this entry: “sleeping at the switch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sleeping_at_the_switch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.