to sleep around
- phrasal verb
- /sliːp əˈraʊnd/
- NSFW
- Many young people choose to sleep around during their college years to explore different relationships.
- it's okay to sleep around
- think I'm sleeping around
- girl that sleeps around
And you can be madly in love with somebody and also sleep around.
- And you can be madly in love with somebody and also sleep around.
- There was a time when you were single and you maybe could sleep around or did sleep around and it probably didn't live up to your expectations either.
- Because as you sleep around more, you create the alpha widows that other men are taught to avoid.
- Shit, you slept around on your spouse and you just found out that tomorrow she and the lady you're having an affair with are going to be at the same PTA meeting.
- That being said, Scorpios don't really love to sleep around nor do they take sex casually, so until they find their soul match, a Scorpio can feel a little adrift without a partner.
Examples
-
If you were married, would you have an open marriage? I think that all adulterers should, and you should not be angry if your spouse sleeps around, but why would you get upset?
Blog text (19) -
We women are equally self-assured enough to sleep around as much as men.
Blog text (13) -
Guys, when they sleep around, they do it for free.
-
Do you still sleep around?
-
The men seemed to want to sleep around and drink, and the women wanted to be free of the expectations of marriage and children.
Fiction book (1997) -
And I want you to know I don't sleep around.
-
Doesn't it bother you to sleep around without being in love?
-
She drinks a lot, makes out with girls, sleeps around with random guys.
-
There was a time when you were single and you maybe could sleep around or did sleep around and it probably didn't live up to your expectations either.
-
I know women who boast about their ability to sleep around untouched by emotions, and I've been able to do the same, but I'm not sure anyone prefers it in the long run.
Blog text (27)
Synonyms
To have sex with someone who is not your husband or wife
Having sex with many different people without a steady partner
To have sex with someone outside your relationship
To have sex with many different people, often casually
To have sex with many different people in a short time
To have sex briefly in a casual way
How Promiscuous
Surface Forms
Morphology
sleep + around
The literal meanings of 'sleep' and 'around' do not directly yield 'have casual sex with multiple partners', but English uses 'sleep with' as a euphemism for sexual intercourse and the particle 'around' extends that to multiple/various partners. Because the meaning relies on a conventional euphemistic/idiomatic extension rather than pure composition, it is partially predictable but not fully transparent to learners who only know the single-word senses.
Etymology
Sleep around comes from the plain picture of someone who literally sleeps in many different beds around town. So it came to mean 'to have sex with many different people without being in a relationship'.