somnivolent

S1O1M3N1I1V4O1L1E1N1T1

adjective

Having a desire to sleep.

Scrabble 16

Meanings

adjectivesomnivolent (comparative more somnivolent, superlative most somnivolent)

comparative more somnivolent · superlative most somnivolent

  1. Having a desire to sleep.

    Thoughts of needing to rise for work in the morning further hindered Paul the somnivolent. The longer he lay awake the clearer his head became and the less likely he was to fall asleep, or so he thought.

    2012, Neil Raffan, Neuter Spectator, page 22
    2 more examples

    This portion of the poem, just after the Harrowing of Hell has been portrayed, opens with Will at home, awake from his last vision, dressing and going to Mass. In the midst of the service our somnivolent hero falls into his usual state and dreams his second-to-last vision.

    1962, Morton Wilfred Bloomfield, Piers Plowman as a fourteenth-century apocalypse, page 128

    […] she impatiently brushed them away, her eyes alight with the joy of living, her cheeks pink, her whole body taking on a sense of direction, a firmness of movement, as if it had been woken out of years of a somnivolent state.

    1986, Christine Park, Joining the grown-ups, page 124

Origin

  1. Latinsomnus
  2. Englishsomnivolent

Derived from Latin somnus + -i- + volēns; see also volition.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

somnivolent. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/somnivolent

MLA

“somnivolent.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/somnivolent. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “somnivolent,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/somnivolent.

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