a. and sb. Also 5–6 sompnolent. [a. OF. sompnolent (mod.F. somnolent), or ad. L. somnolentus (med.L. sompno-), f. somnus sleep.]
1. Tending to cause sleepiness or drowsiness; inclining to sleep.
c. 1475. Partenay, 5376. Where it behouith to wacche nightes thre Without any sompnolent slepe to be.
1615. G. Sandys, Trav., 292.
| Takes age in ease, and sleepe content? | |
| Then Baiæ what more somnolent? |
1824. Dibdin, Libr. Comp., 531. An effect which we seek in vain in the somnolent pages of Lediard.
1855. Dickens, Dorrit, xix. He was again painfully aware of a somnolent tendency in Frederick.
1882. De Windt, Equator, 75. The noise made by the stream … had a very pleasant and somnolent effect.
b. Marked by sleepiness or slowness.
1812. Q. Rev., VIII. 64. The translator restricts his somnolent interrogation to Codrus.
1877. D. M. Wallace, Russia, v. 76. And I must do Anton the justice to say that he served me well in his own somnolent fashion.
2. Of persons: Inclined to sleep; heavy with sleep; drowsy. Also transf.
1547. Boorde, Brev. Health, xiii. (1557), B iij b. If the sycke person do vomit & be sompnouent [sic] or sleping.
1623. Cockeram, I. Somnolent, sleepie.
1625. Jackson, Creed, V. xvi. Wks. IV. 118. Deriding the somnolent and sluggish gods of the Epicures.
1721. in Bailey.
1819. Scott, Leg. Montrose, v. I am no whit somnolent; I always hear best with my eyes shut.
1837. Barham, Ingol. Leg., Ser. I. Grey Dolphin (1905), 45. Fasting and watching had made him more than usually somnolent.
1891. T. Hardy, Tess, I. iv. 52. When they had passed the little town of Stourcastle, dumbly somnolent under its thick brown thatch.
b. sb. A somnolent or sleepy person; one affected with somnolence.
1841. W. C. Dendy, Philos. Mystery, 373–4. Like many other somnolents, she was morose and irritable, especially previous to the sleeping-fit.
Hence Somnolently adv., in a somnolent manner; sleepily.
1615. Jackson, Creed, IV. II. ix. Wks. III. 378. I know none but may have hope to escape so they will not … somnolently put off the evil day.
1827. Blackw. Mag., XXII. 384. Alciphron could not possibly have been more somnolently inclined.
1875. M. Collins, Sweet & Twenty, II. vi. An inquisitive investigative youth was Charles, who never threw away his time somnolently.
