Forsleep

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To be overcome with sleep. archaic, intransitive
  2. 2
    To neglect through sleep or by sleeping; sleep through; oversleep; sleep off. archaic, transitive

    "At this moment, Giulietta, who had already forslept and digested the virtue of the potion, awoke and feeling herself kissed, misdoubted her that the friar, being come to take her up and carry her to his chamber, [...]"

Example

More examples

"At this moment, Giulietta, who had already forslept and digested the virtue of the potion, awoke and feeling herself kissed, misdoubted her that the friar, being come to take her up and carry her to his chamber, [...]"

Etymology

From Middle English forslepen, equivalent to for- + sleep. Cognate with West Frisian forsliepe (“to forsleep”), Dutch verslapen (“to sleep off, sleep away”), German verschlafen (“to sleep away, oversleep”).

Related phrases

sleep off

More for "forsleep"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.