sleeping beauty
1
5.1
- noun
- /ˈsliːpɪŋ ˈbjuːti/
:
belleza durmiente
- In the fairy tale, the sleeping beauty waits for true love's kiss to awaken her.
Examples
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The little girl looked like a sleeping beauty in her pink dress.
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The photographer captured the essence of a sleeping beauty in the soft morning light.
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After the long journey, Maria became our own sleeping beauty, dozing peacefully in the back seat.
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She looked like a sleeping beauty as she napped on the couch, undisturbed by the noise around her.
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Is she really a sleeping beauty or just pretending?
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She looked like a sleeping beauty as she rested peacefully on the couch.
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Everyone admired Sarah, the sleeping beauty, who seemed to glow while she slept.
How Asleep
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun phrase is directly compositional: 'sleeping' modifies 'beauty', yielding the sense 'a beautiful person who is sleeping', which a B1 learner who knows both words can readily infer. While it can also evoke the fairy-tale character, that cultural reference does not obscure the literal, transparent combination and similar constructions occur cross-linguistically.
Etymology
Sleeping beauty comes from the famous fairy tale about a princess who sleeps for many years and looks perfect while asleep. So calling someone a sleeping beauty means a woman or girl who is sleeping and looks especially beautiful, like the story.