slumber

What it means

1. A very light state of sleep, almost awake.

   Fast asleep? It is no matter; / Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber.

   1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]

   2 more examples

   Ev’n Luſt and Envy ſleep, yet Love denies / Reſt to my Soul, and ſlumber to my Eyes.

   1665 (first performance), John Dryden, The Indian Emperour, or, The Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. […], London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for H[enry] Herringman […], published 1667, →OCLC, Act III, scene ii, page 29

   He at last fell into a slumber, and thence into a fast sleep, which detained him in that place until it was almost night.

   1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], London: […] Nath[aniel] Ponder […], →OCLC

   1. broadlyA very heavy state of sleep.
2. figurativelyA state of ignorance or inaction.

   Marcel Duchamp's urinal and readymades seemed in the beginning to be insider jokes or jokelike paradoxes meant to awaken people from their aesthetic slumbers.

   2009, Ben-Ami Scharfstein, Art without borders: a philosophical exploration of art and humanity

In a sentence

Fast asleep? It is no matter; / Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber.

1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*(s)lew-“loose, limp, flabby”
2. Proto-Germanic*slūm-“slack, loose, limp, flabby”
3. Old Englishslūma
4. Middle Englishslume“slumber”
5. Middle Englishslummen
6. Middle Englishslombren
7. Englishslumber

From Middle English slombren, slomren, frequentative of Middle English slummen, slumen (“to doze”), probably from Middle English slume (“slumber”), from Old English slūma, from Proto-Germanic *slūm- (“slack, loose, limp, flabby”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)lew- (“loose, limp, flabby”). Cognate with West Frisian slommerje, slûmerje (“to slumber”), Dutch sluimeren (“to slumber”), German schlummern (“to slumber, doze”), Swedish slummer (“to slumber”). By surface analysis, sloom + -er.