slumbery

S1L1U1M3B3E1R1Y4

adjective

Inclined to sleep; sleepy or sleeping; (by extension) quiet and slow-paced.

Scrabble 15

Meanings

adjectiveslumbery (comparative more slumbery, superlative most slumbery)

comparative more slumbery · superlative most slumbery · alternative obsolete slombry · alternative obsolete slumbry

  1. 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 405
    3 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 Tell

    In 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 Allen

    There 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 186

    Synonyms: 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

  1. Middle Englishslumbry
  2. Englishslumbery

From Middle English slumbry, slombry, slomry, equivalent to slumber + -y. Cognate with Middle Dutch slumerich (“slumbery”).

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

slumbery. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/slumbery

MLA

“slumbery.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/slumbery. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “slumbery,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/slumbery.

Source: slumbery on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.