Snooze

//snuːz// noun, verb, slang

noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A brief period of sleep; a nap.

    "The cat enjoys taking a snooze on a sunny windowsill."

  2. 2
    sleeping for a short period of time (usually not in bed) wordnet
  3. 3
    The snooze button on an alarm clock. informal
  4. 4
    Something boring. informal

    "The whole movie was a snooze."

Verb
  1. 1
    To sleep, especially briefly; to nap, doze. intransitive

    "The boss caught him snoozing at his desk."

  2. 2
    sleep lightly or for a short period of time wordnet
  3. 3
    To pause; to postpone for a short while. transitive

    "It enables you to dismiss the reminder, dismiss all reminders, open the highlighted item in the Reminder dialog, and snooze the reminder. Snoozing a reminder is similar to hitting the snooze button on an alarm clock[…]"

Synonyms

All synonyms
bed booger(s)borecatch some z'scatnapcrashcrusty

Example

More examples

"I hit the snooze button and went back to sleep."

Etymology

Unknown, attested since 18th century. Compare Dutch snoezelen (“to snooze”) or Swedish snusa (“to snore lightly”). Confer also Ancient Greek νυστάζω (nustázō, “to doze, drowse”) and Russian сон (son, “sleep, dream”).

Related phrases

snooze buttonsnooze offtiger snoozeyou snooze you losealarm clocksnooze button

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