/slips/
Say it backSleeps is the third-person singular present tense of sleep, meaning to rest or slumber for a period. In everyday usage, it denotes the action of going to or being asleep or the act of sleeping at a specific time or repeatedly. As a lexical unit, it often appears in contexts like routines, insomnia discussions, or animal behavior. It can also function as a noun in rare poetic usage, though this is uncommon.
"She sleeps for eight hours every night."
"The cat sleeps on the sunny windowsill."
"During the power nap, he sleeps briefly and feels refreshed."
Pronounce as /sliːps/. The initial /s/ is a voiceless alveolar sibilant, the vowel is a long close-front unrounded /iː/ (like 'sheep'), and the final /ps/ cluster is two distinct sounds: /p/ with a light burst of air followed by /s/. Tip: keep the tongue high for /iː/ and release the /p/ with a small, quick puff before the /s/. IPA: /sliːps/.
Common mistakes: (1) shortening the vowel to a lax /ɪ/ as in 'sli ips' and not holding the long /iː/. (2) Not releasing the /p/ clearly before /s/, leading to a blurred /ps/ cluster. (3) For non-native speakers, merging final /s/ with preceding voiceless consonants, producing /sliːp/ with no /s/ at the end. Correction: ensure a full vowel length /iː/, clearly release /p/ and then pronounce /s/ crisply. Practice by saying 'sleep' slowly, then add the final /s/ in isolation and in context.
Across accents, the core /sliːps/ remains, but vowel quality and rhoticity affect surrounding sounds. US/UK: vowel is long /iː/ with little difference in length; US may have slightly tenser front vowel. AU tends to be non-rhotic like UK; final /s/ remains, sometimes with a lighter /p/ release. The main variation is the preceding consonant timing and the degree of vowel rounding; rhoticity is not typically explicit in this word, but following vowels in connected speech can alter adjacent rhythms.
The difficulty lies in the final consonant cluster /ps/ after a long vowel: you need a clean stop release /p/ followed immediately by a hiss-like /s/. Many learners drop the /p/ or merge /p/ and /s/ into /f/ or /s/; others shorten the /iː/ under fast speech, resulting in /slips/ or /slips/ mispronunciations. Focus on holding /iː/, briefly pausing for the /p/ release, then unfused /s/ for clarity in connected speech.
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Sleeps derives from the Old English slege or slæp?e?u, evolving through Middle English to modern forms. The base verb sleep has Germanic origins, with cognates in Old High German slāfan and Dutch slapen, reflecting a Proto-Germanic root *slēpaną meaning 'to sleep'. The third-person singular -s form followed standard English inflection patterns, while the overall verb retained Germanic semantics of rest and unconsciousness. Through centuries, 'sleep' broadened semantically to include periods of reduced consciousness in animals and humans, as well as metaphorical uses (sleep of death, sleep as a noun in poetry). The first known written attestations appear in Old English, with later Middle English texts documenting regular inflection and the common collocations of sleep with night, rest, and dreams. The word has remained highly productive in daily language, maintaining strong phonetic stability while expanding in syntactic usage and metaphorical scope.
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💡 These words have similar meanings to "sleeps" and can often be used interchangeably.
🔄 These words have opposite meanings to "sleeps" and show contrast in usage.
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Words that rhyme with "sleeps"
-eps sounds
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