Sleeper

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -iːpÉ™(r)

sleep + -er

Full definition of sleeper

Noun

1. Someone who sleeps.I'm a light sleeper: I get woken up by the smallest of sounds.She's a heavy sleeper: it takes a lot to wake her up.
2. That which lies dormant, as a law.
3. A spy, saboteur, or terrorist who lives unobtrusively in a community until activated by a prearranged signal; may be part of a sleeper cell.
4. A railroad sleeping car.We spent a night on an uncomfortable sleeper between Athens and Vienna.
5. Something that achieves unexpected success after an interval of time.A box-office bomb when it first came out, the film was a sleeper, becoming much more popular decades after being released.
6. A goby-like bottom-feeding freshwater fish of the family .
7. A nurse shark.
8. A type of pajama for a person, especially a child, that covers the whole body, including the feet.Aaron, Devin, and Laura looked so comfy in their sleepers.
9. (slang) An automobile which, not too quick out of the factory, has been internally modified to excess, while retaining a mostly stock appearance in order to fool opponents in a drag race, or to avoid the attention of the police.

Synonyms

• (goby-like fish)

Antonyms

• (automobile) cop magnet, rice burner, racecar

Derived terms

• sleeper agent
• sleeper cab
• sleeper cell

Compare Norwegian sleip ("a sleeper (a timber); as adjective, slippery, smooth"). See slape.

Noun

1. (rail transport, British) A railroad tie. Image:Spoorbaan houten dwarsliggers alphen aan den rijn.jpg|right|thumb|The short wooden bars are sleepers, and the long metal bars are
2. (carpentry) A structural beam in a floor running perpendicular to both the joists beneath and floorboards above.
3. (nautical) A heavy floor timber in a ship's bottom.
4. (nautical) The lowest, or bottom, tier of casks.

Synonyms

• (horizontal member that supports railway lines) tie (US)

Anagrams

• peelers