sleeping

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of sleep

   ‘No. I only opened the door a foot and put my head in. The street lamps shine into that room. I could see him. He was all right. Sleeping like a great grampus. Poor, poor chap.’

   1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 20, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC

1. not comparableAsleep.

   We found a sleeping child inside the church.

   1 more example

   Irregular bedtimes may disrupt healthy brain development in young children, according to a study of intelligence and sleeping habits. ¶ Going to bed at a different time each night affected girls more than boys, but both fared worse on mental tasks than children who had a set bedtime, researchers found.

   2013 July 19, Ian Sample, “Irregular bedtimes may affect children's brains”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 34

2. not comparableUsed for sleep; used to produce sleep.

plural sleepings

1. countableuncountableThe state of being asleep, or an instance of this.

   And as I lay and lened and loked in the wateres / I slombred in a slepyng, it swyved so merye.

   c. 1380, William Langland, The Vision of Piers Plowman, section I

   1 more example

   […] there are no words to describe the way she negotiated the abyss between her dreams, those wakings strange as her sleepings.

   1995, Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, page 144