Meanings
comparative more slumbery · superlative most slumbery · alternative obsolete slombry · alternative obsolete slumbry
- Inclined to sleep; sleepy or sleeping; (by extension) quiet and slow-paced.
Only the upper part of her body is awake, and even that droops with a slumbery weakness.
1820, The London Magazine, volume 1, page 4053 more examples
“Yes, miss. He found you outside on the portico. You were wet and cold and all slumbery.” “Slumbery?” Susannah scrunched her nose at the sound of the word. “Asleep, miss. He couldn't wake you.” Colleen took Susannah's hand.
2014, Suzanne Hoos, Only Time Will TellIn the summer of 1981, shortly before the filming of A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, Mia fell in love with a sixty-acre farm, Frog Hollow, on the outskirts of Bridgewater, Connecticut, a slumbery country town of 1,600, boasting a post office, a general store, and a gas station, as well as a bank and library.
2014, Marion Meade, The Unruly Life of Woody AllenThere are also the calamitous events of bushfires all over the continent, and the title of my first poetry collection, Crackle at Midnight, reflects this anxiety as it speaks to the jolting disruption of a raging fire that invades a slumbery community in the heart of rural Malawi, leaving its inhabitants covered in a green pall of toxic haze.
2021, Dike Okoro, Lupenga Mphande: Eco-Critical Poet and Political Activist, page 186Synonyms: slumberous, sleepy
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectiveInclined to sleep; sleepy or sleeping; (by extension) quiet and slow-paced.
More synonyms by meaning
adjectiveinclined to or marked by drowsiness
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Middle Englishslumbry
- Englishslumbery
From Middle English slumbry, slombry, slomry, equivalent to slumber + -y. Cognate with Middle Dutch slumerich (“slumbery”).
More words from Middle English
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
slumbery. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/slumbery
“slumbery.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/slumbery. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “slumbery,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/slumbery.
Source: slumbery on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.