Sleep over or sleepover?
sleep over is a verb meaning “To spend the night as a guest in someone's home”; sleepover is a noun meaning “The act of spending the night as a guest in another's house, especially when…”. Use sleep over as a verb and sleepover as a noun. sleep over is written as two words and sleepover as one word; they are used differently.
What is the difference between sleep over and sleepover?
| sleep over | sleepover | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb | noun |
| Meaning | To spend the night as a guest in someone's home | The act of spending the night as a guest in another's house, especially when the participants are children An overnight guest |
| Example | none recorded | none recorded |
| Forms | none | sleepovers |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | not recorded |
| In writing | not counted (the list counts single words) | about once in every 1 million words |
Sources: sleep over and sleepover in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of sleep over and sleepover
sleep over
- 1
To spend the night as a guest in someone's home
sleepover
- 1
The act of spending the night as a guest in another's house, especially when the participants are children
- 2
An overnight guest
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, sleep over or sleepover?
sleep over is a phrase, which the list of single words does not count; sleepover about once in every 1 million words.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).