sleep a wink
"sleep-a-wink" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sleep a wink” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To sleep at all.
Corpus desk
Index EN-sleep-a-wink · sleep a wink · English
sleep a wink · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "S" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sleep a wink |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “sleep a wink” in English
Rare enough to double-check
sleep a wink is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To sleep at all.".
sleep a wink doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Shakespeare's "Cymbeline" Act III Scene IV. The correct English form is sleep a wink, spelled S-L-E-E-P- -A- -W-I-N-K.
Definition
- 1To sleep at all.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how sleep a wink appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
I'm so tired, I haven't slept a wink
Etymology
From Shakespeare's "Cymbeline" Act III Scene IV.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.