somnolent
UK/ˈsɒmnələnt//ˈsɑːmnələnt/
somnolent adjective: drowsy or sleepy.
Adjective
somnolent (comparative more somnolent, superlative most somnolent)
- Drowsy or sleepy.
- One minute she was gazing at a mockup of a space capsule, safely surrounded by old, somnolent men; […]1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 4, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 60
- […]; and in chronicling the passing parade of Harry's life, the books have also created a Kodachrome-sharp picture of American life - the psychic ups and downs, enthusiasms and reversals experienced by this nation as it moved from the somnolent 50's through the upheavals of the 60's and 70's into...1990 September 25, Michiko Kakutani, “Just 30 Years Later, Updike Has a Quartet”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
- Synonyms:
- sleepbound, somniculous, adrowse, bedroomy, dozy, dopey, dragging one's tail, drowsy, eyelids at half-mast, nodding off
- Causing literal or figurative sleepiness.
- As she reached toward the last few fiddleheads growing on the second hummock, her hand froze. She heard the somnolent buzzing of flies again.1999, Stephen King, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
- Synonyms:
- soporific, dormitive, hypnic, hypnotic, slumberous, somniferous, somnific, soporiferous, soporous, stupefacient
somnolent meaning in Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
somnolent in Bengali
- নিদ্রালু, ঝিমুনি ভাব
somnolent in Malayalam
- ഉറങ്ങിയ, മയങ്ങിയ, കാരണമായ, ഉറക്കം വരുത്തുന്ന
somnolent in Kannada
- ಒರಕುತೂಗುವ, ತೂಕಡಿಸುವ
Synonyms of somnolent
- sleepbound
- somniculous
- adrowse
- bedroomy
- dozy
- dopey
- dragging one's tail
- drowsy
- eyelids at half-mast
- nodding off
24 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of somnolent
| comparative | more somnolent |
|---|---|
| superlative | most somnolent |
Origin of somnolent
First attested in 1615. Borrowed from French somnolent, from Old French sompnolent, from Latin somnolentus, from somnus (“sleep”).
Words formed from somnolent
Questions about somnolent
- What does somnolent mean?
- Somnolent means drowsy or sleepy.
- What is somnolent in Bengali?
- Somnolent in Bengali is নিদ্রালু, ঝিমুনি ভাব. See Somnolent meaning in Bengali.
- What part of speech is somnolent?
- Somnolent is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce somnolent?
- Somnolent is pronounced /ˈsɒmnələnt/ (UK).
Words near somnolent in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: somnolent (page history and authors); somnolent (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); somnolent (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); somnolent (Kannada Wiktionary) (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-somnolent.ogg.
Cite this entry: “somnolent.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/somnolent. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
