sleeping

/ˈsliːpɪŋ/adjective, noun, verb

sleeping is spelled S-L-E-E-P-I-N-G: 8 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 36 times per million words in written English, the 2,669th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an adjective, sleeping means “Asleep” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in sleeping?

Letters	8: S-L-E-E-P-I-N-G
Syllables	2 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing	36 times per million words; the 2,669th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched	none measured in search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How common is sleeping?

Sleeping appears 36 times per million words in written English, the 2,669th most frequent word form in the list.

sleeping0.0010.010.11101001,00010,000

rarerper million words of written Englishmore common

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce sleeping?

/ˈsliːpɪŋ/

Sleeping has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-sleeping.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of sleeping

sleepings plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does sleeping mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

1
Asleep.
We found a sleeping child inside the church.
2
Used for sleep; used to produce sleep.

noun

1
The state of being asleep, or an instance of this.

verb

1
present participle and gerund of sleep (a form of sleep)