Microsleep

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A brief period of sleep, usually of a few seconds, that may result from sleep deprivation or various medical conditions. countable, uncountable

    "During a microsleep, your brain becomes blind to the outside world for a brief moment—and not just the visual domain, but in all channels of perception."

Example

More examples

"Tom had a microsleep while driving and narrowly missed an oncoming semi-trailer."

Etymology

From micro- + sleep.

Related phrases

sleep deprivation

More for "microsleep"

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