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Sandman

name, noun

Definitions

Proper Noun

1
A surname.
2
Alternative letter-case form of sandman (“folkloric figure sprinkling sand into eyes”). alt-of

Noun

1
A figure that brings sleep and dreams by sprinkling magical sand into people's eyes.
"This then was the Sandman; but what was his occupation, and what was his purpose ? The nursery-maid being applied to, gave a nursery-maid's explanation, that the Sandman was a bad man, who flung sand in the eyes of little children who did not go to bed."
2
an elf in fairy stories who sprinkles sand in children's eyes to make them sleepy wordnet
3
Used as a symbol of the passage of time toward death.
4
A seller of sand. obsolete
"1811, Arabian Nights' Entertainments, Consisting of One Thousand and One Stories, Told by the Sultaness of the Indies, Henry Mozley (publ.), page 114. While I was out, a sandman, who sells scouring sand, which women use to clean the baths with, passed through our street, and called, Any sand ho !"

Etymology

From sand + -man. The mythological sense may be from German Sandmann, Sandmännchen, as it is apparently first attested in English in the context of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novella The Sandman (1816). The German is attested in the relevant sense since at least the mid-18th century.

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