SLEEPLESSNESS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does sleeplessness mean? 

• SLEEPLESSNESS (noun)
  The noun SLEEPLESSNESS has 1 sense:

1. a temporary state in which you are unable (or unwilling) to sleep

  Familiarity information: SLEEPLESSNESS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SLEEPLESSNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A temporary state in which you are unable (or unwilling) to sleep

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

sleeplessness; wakefulness

Context example:

accept your wakefulness and sleep in its own contrary way is more likely to come

Hypernyms ("sleeplessness" is a kind of...):

temporary state (a state that continues for a limited time)

Derivation:

sleepless (experiencing or accompanied by sleeplessness)

 Context examples 

Substances taken from the root have been used in some cultures to relieve stress, anxiety, tension, sleeplessness, and problems of menopause.

(Intoxicating pepper, NCI Dictionary)

Among participants of European descent, there was additionally a genetic tie between sleeplessness and major depression.

(Can't Sleep? Could Be Down to Genetics, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

But we have a charming morning after it, she added, desiring to get rid of the subject; and storms and sleeplessness are nothing when they are over.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Days and nights of sleeplessness and anxiety had doubtless turned my head.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Oh, the terrible struggle that I have had against sleep so often of late; the pain of the sleeplessness, or the pain of the fear of sleep, with such unknown horrors as it has for me!

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The big trunk stood ready in the hall, Mother's cloak and bonnet lay on the sofa, and Mother herself sat trying to eat, but looking so pale and worn with sleeplessness and anxiety that the girls found it very hard to keep their resolution.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Under the strain of this continually impending doom and by the sleeplessness to which I now condemned myself, ay, even beyond what I had thought possible to man, I became, in my own person, a creature eaten up and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind, and solely occupied by one thought: the horror of my other self.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

He was pale and there were dark signs of sleeplessness beneath his eyes.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)