Word.ws English Dictionary

sober

/ˈsəʊ.bə(ɹ)//ˈsoʊ.bɚ/

sober adjective: not drunk; not intoxicated.

Adjective

sober (comparative soberer, superlative soberest)

  1. Not drunk; not intoxicated.
  2. Not under the influence of any recreational drug.
    • Ten months sober, I must admit
      Just because you're clean, don't mean you don't miss it2014 October 27, Taylor Swift, Imogen Heap, “Clean (Taylor's Version)”, in 1989 (Taylor's Version), performed by Taylor Swift, published 27 October 2023
  3. Not given to excessive drinking of alcohol.
    • Amid all the confusion and disorder that sin has introduced into the world, the Christian in union with God has a grace or Divine help that enables him to live the sober, self-restrained life.1890, John Charles Cox, “The Sober Life”, in The Godly, Righteous, And Sober Life, page 35
    • After eliminating alcohol from their lives, some sober individuals exclusively date nondrinkers.2020 December 29, Hilary Sheinbaum, “Finding Love Without Alcohol”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 12 Feb 2021
  4. (figuratively) Moderate; realistic; serious; not playful; not passionate; cool; self-controlled.
    • God help me to watch and to be sober.1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], London: […] Nath[aniel] Ponder […], →OCLC, page 31
    • [N]o ſober man vvould put himſelf into a danger for the Applauſe of ſcaping vvithout breaking his Neck.1680, John Dryden, “The Preface to Ovid’s Epistles”, in Ovid, Ovid’s Epistles, […], London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC
  5. Dull; not bright or colorful.
    • Twilight grey / Had in her sober livery all things clad.1667, John Milton, “(please specify the page number)”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker...
  6. Subdued; solemn; grave.
    • See her sober over a sampler, or gay over a jointed baby.1717, Alexander Pope, Letter from Edward Blount, Esq.
    • What parts gay France from sober Spain? A little rising rocky chain.1718, Mat[thew] Prior, “Alma: Or, The Progress of the Mind”, in Poems on Several Occasions, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], and John Barber […], →OCLC
  7. (Scotland) Poor; feeble.

Verb

sober (third-person singular simple present sobers, present participle sobering, simple past and past participle sobered)

  1. (often, with-up) To make or become sober.
    • His expression sobered.
    • There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, / And drinking largely sobers us again.1711, Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism
  2. (often, with-up) To overcome or lose a state of intoxication.
    • It took him hours to sober up.
  3. To moderate one's feelings; to accept a disappointing reality after losing one's ability to believe in a fantastic goal.
    • Losing his job was a sobering experience.

Proper noun capitalized: Sober

Sober (plural Sobers)

  1. A surname.

sober meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

sober in Tamil

குடி மயக்கமற்ற, நிதானமான, தெளிவான, அழகற்ற, இயல்பான, எளிய

sober in Urdu

سنجیدہ

sober in Bengali

প্রশান্ত, গম্ভীর, সংযত, মাতাল নয় এমন অবস্থা

sober in Malayalam

ആത്മനിയന്ത്രണമുള്ള, മദ്യലഹരിയിലല്ലാത്ത, ശാന്തസ്വഭാവക്കാരനായ, സമചിത്തതയുള്ള, അക്ഷുബ്ധമായ
More languagesFewer languages
sober in Kannada
ಇಳಿಸು, ತಗ್ಗಿಸು, ಸೊಕ್ಕಿಲ್ಲದ, ಪಸಿಯಿಸದ
sober in Nepali
सोबर
sober in Arabic
صَاحٍ ṣāḥin
sober in Thai
ไม่เมา, สร่างเมา

Examples of sober in a sentence

  • Which is the finest and soberest state possible.2005, Plato, translated by Lesley Brown, Sophist, page 230d:
  • The night air may have sobered him a bit by the time they got back to Beattock.1950 January, David L. Smith, “A Runaway at Beattock”, in Railway Magazine, page 53:

All 40 example sentences with sober

Synonyms of sober

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

10 more antonymsFewer antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of sober

Forms of sober

Adjective
comparativesoberer
superlativesoberest
Verb
third-person singular presentsobers
present participlesobering
past participlesobered
pastsobered
Proper noun
pluralSobers

Origin of sober

Inherited from Middle English sober, from Old French sobre, from Latin sōbrius, from se- (“without”) + ebrius (“intoxicated”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁egʷʰ- (“drink”). In the sense "not drunk," displaced native undrunken, from Old English undruncen.

Words formed from sober

Phrases with sober

Words that rhyme with sober

Questions about sober

What does sober mean?
Sober means not drunk; not intoxicated.
What is sober in Tamil?
Sober in Tamil is குடி மயக்கமற்ற, நிதானமான, தெளிவான. See Sober meaning in Tamil.
How do you use sober in a sentence?
Which is the finest and soberest state possible.
What part of speech is sober?
Sober can be an adjective, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce sober?
Sober is pronounced /ˈsəʊ.bə(ɹ)/.

Words near sober in the dictionary

  1. Sobel-Feldman operators
  2. sobels
  3. sobemoviral
  4. sobemovirus
  5. sobemoviruses
  6. sober
  7. sober as a judge
  8. sober down
  9. sober house
  10. sober lite
  11. sober living house

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sober (page history and authors); Sober (page history and authors); sober (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sober (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sober (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sober (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sober (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sober (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-sober.ogg.

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