Slumber Is Sleep in Its Sunday Clothes
Slumber means sleep, in a literary or poetic register. English keeps it for lullabies, epitaphs and one American party.
Slumber means sleep, but nobody says it about last night. It survives in raised registers — poetry, hymns, gravestones — and in one thoroughly unpoetic American compound: a *slumber party*, which is what Britain calls a sleepover and which involves very little slumber.
- Sleep (literary). *A deep slumber.*
- To sleep. *The village slumbered.*
- Slumber party — an overnight party for children (American). *A slumber party on Friday.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | slumber | A peaceful slumber. |
| Plural | slumbers | Disturbed his slumbers. |
| Verb | slumber | The town slumbers. |
| Adjective | slumbering | A slumbering giant. |
| Related | dormant | A dormant volcano. |
How it is used in a sentence
- She fell into a deep slumber.Literary.
- A slumbering industry woke up.Figurative: inactive.
- The children are having a sleepover.The British term.
Sleep words by register
- Sleep — the plain word
- Slumber — literary and poetic
- Doze — light sleep, often unintended
- Nap — a short deliberate sleep
- Kip — British informal for a sleep
From Middle English *slumeren*, from Old English *sluma*, light sleep. The intrusive *b* appeared in spelling and pronunciation, as it did in *number* and *chamber*.
Slumber party or sleepover?
Slumber party is American; sleepover is used in Britain and increasingly everywhere.
Why the b in slumber?
An intrusive consonant that developed between m and r, as in thimble and chamber. It was never in the original word.