sleeping around
9
9.1
- idiom
- NSFW
:
tener relaciones sin compromiso
- - It's not like he didn't know Paul was sleeping around.
- stop sleeping around
- sleeping around a lot
- start sleeping around
Examples
-
Women are not going to get that by sleeping around.
Blog text (8) -
There's nothing empowering about sleeping around casually.
Blog text (8) -
I'm not dating anyone, just sleeping around.
Blog text (13) -
Accuses her of sleeping around.
-
Sleeping around is not empowering because women will not be respected by most men for this.
Blog text (8) -
She decided to stop sleeping around after realizing it wasn't fulfilling her emotionally.
-
He was tired of the drama caused by sleeping around and wanted a committed relationship.
-
Many young adults in college experience sleeping around before settling down with a partner.
Synonyms
13
7.7
Date several different people without wanting a serious relationship
10
8.8
To have sex with many people without a steady partner
To have sex with many different people, often casually
Antonyms
How Faithful
Surface Forms
Morphology
sleeping + around
The verb 'sleep' is being used metaphorically to mean 'have sex' while 'around' conveys doing so with multiple people; a learner who only knows the literal meanings ('sleep' = rest, 'around' = moving about) might partly infer an extended meaning but could also interpret it literally (sleeping in various places). Because the sexual sense of 'sleep' is idiomatic and the collocation 'sleeping around' requires exposure to confirm the promiscuous meaning, the expression is not fully transparent to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Sleeping around comes from the image of a person moving from bed to bed; sleeping is a quiet way to talk about sex and around shows it happens with many different people. That's why it means 'having sex with many people without commitment'.