sleepwalk

English

Etymology

sleep +‎ walk

Verb

sleepwalk (third-person singular simple present sleepwalks, present participle sleepwalking, simple past and past participle sleepwalked)

1. (intransitive) To walk and/or perform other actions while sleeping; to somnambulate.
   • 2022 August 24, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Rail strikes deadlock”, in RAIL, number 964, page 3:

     Government... unions... industry... we have had enough. We - no, YOU - are sleepwalking the rest of us towards a less busy, less relevant industry with a smaller workforce, fewer passengers, fading importance, declining investment, poorly-paid jobs, and a truly shambolic reputation.

2. (intransitive, figurative) To perform actions without being aware of them; to do something that invites certain results without confronting that possibility.

   The government is sleepwalking into a crisis.

   They're trying to sleepwalk past their health problems.

Usage notes

Other rare inflected forms, such as sleepswalk, sleptwalk, and sleptwalked, exist, but are nonstandard conjugations.

Derived terms

• sleepwalker

Translations

somnambulate — see somnambulate