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Glite Dictionary
😴 To wake up late 🏠 To live at work
to sleep in

to sleep in

5 6.3
To sleep at the house where you work, for example as a nanny
  • phrasal verb
  • /slip ɪn/
  • Archaic
translation icon : vivir en la casa del empleador (regional/arcaico)
  • We sleep in my significant other's childhood bedroom.

Examples

  • Uh, could you give me the permission to sleep in my cousin's office until I find for myself a room?

    They're a Weird Mob (1966)

  • The poor couple kindly replied, "You two may sleep in our bed tonight; we will take the living floor for the night."

    Blog text (30)

  • It's not a hotel, Please do not sleep in your office.

  • Tonight, they will not be welcome to sleep in the house.

    Killing Lincoln (2013)

  • And my office is all ready for them to sleep in.

    Meet the Fockers (2004)

  • You can sleep in the place where I work.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • Both of them sleep in my room at night.

    Blog text (17)

  • We’ll have to sleep in the hills tonight.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • After the three men talked it over, Mr. Bondurant announced that henceforth he would sleep in our barn, and the others would relieve him during the day.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • As a full-time nanny, she was required to sleep in the family's home every night.

Synonyms

to live in
vsto sleep in
194 3.7

To stay and sleep where you work, usually in your employer's house

is used for domestic workers who remain in the house rather than commuting

Antonyms

commute
92 3.0

A regular journey between home and work, often over a long distance

Surface Forms

sleep in infinitive
sleeping in present participle
sleeps in third person singular
slept in past
slept in past participle

Morphology

sleep + in

The constituents 'sleep' (rest) and 'in' (indicating location) give a partial clue — the phrase suggests sleeping at/inside a place — but the specific occupational sense of residing in an employer's house is a specialized, lexicalized use not directly predictable. Many learners will instead interpret 'sleep in' as 'stay in bed late', so knowing the parts is insufficient to guarantee the intended meaning without exposure.

Etymology

Sleep in used for a worker comes from the literal idea of sleeping in the employer's house so you are there to work early, so it means 'to live in the house where one works'.