Meanings
- euphemisticidiomaticalmost always preceded by theDeath.First known use 1930s
Before I sink into the big sleep / I want to hear / The scream of the butterfly
1967, “When the Music’s Over”, in Strange Days, performed by The Doors1 more example
What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that.
1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, Penguin, published 2011, page 250Synonyms: dirt nap, sleep of the just, death, end, tomb, celestial transfer, decease, decomposition
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
Apparently coined by novelist Raymond Chandler, author of The Big Sleep (1939).
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Finnish ikiuni
- ikiunitype of sleep used as euphemism for death
Cite this entry
big sleep. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/big%20sleep
“big sleep.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/big%20sleep. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “big sleep,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/big%20sleep.
Source: big sleep on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.