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Glite Dictionary
to wet the bed

to wet the bed

16 3.5
To pee in bed while sleeping by accident, often in children
  • phrasal verb
translation icon : mojar la cama
  • He wet the bed.
  • wet the bed at night
  • children who wet the bed
  • stop wetting the bed

They called me PO Theo 'cause I wet the bed, right?

Examples

  • It's common for young kids to wet the bed until they learn bladder control.

  • How many times a night does the child/young person wet the bed?

    Academic text (2012)

  • It's possible I may wet the bed, by the way.

    Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

  • I mean, I almost wet the bed.

    Queenpins (2021)

  • If he has something to drink, he'll wet the bed.

    Home Alone (1990)

  • But, Mom, he'll wet the bed!

    Babe (1995)

  • I wet the bed four months ago.

    Music (2021)

  • There are many reasons why children wet the bed.

    Blog text (1)

  • You know, he still wets the bed.

    Annabelle Comes Home (2019)

  • Yeah, I supposedly stopped wetting the bed just before I turned 13.

    Blog text (4)

Surface Forms

wet the bed infinitive
wet the bed past
wet the bed past participle
wetting the bed present participle
wets the bed third person singular

Morphology

wet + the + bed

The meaning 'to involuntarily urinate while asleep' is directly and literally composed from 'wet' (make wet/urinate) + 'bed' (sleeping furniture), so a learner who knows those words will readily infer that someone has made the bed wet. The definite article 'the' is semantically empty here, and many languages use an equivalent literal construction (e.g., Spanish 'mojar la cama'), supporting clear cross-linguistic transparency.

Etymology

Wet the bed comes from the simple, literal image of a child who falls asleep and accidentally makes the bed wet. Because this happens while the child cannot control it, the phrase now means 'to pee in bed while asleep without meaning to'.