眠

to sleep, rest

Kanji 1842

Find out about famous sleepers in literature. See what it means when "even plants are sleeping." Learn terms for sound and disturbed sleep, insomnia, drowsiness, and dozing. On the figurative side, find out how 眠 connects to unused bank accounts, hypnosis, silkworms, and death. Also learn to say, "I’m a light sleeper," "I wish I had enough time to sleep," and "Sleep is better than medicine."

Revision history:

Mar. 21, 2025: 

• p. 2: Modified text to reflect that 睡眠する is possible, though uncommon. Also revised the 2nd sample sentence for more natural Japanese.
• p. 4: Added a 3rd def. to 眠る and adjusted a breakdown on p. 20 to reflect that. Also added text about this sense on p. 20.
• p. 10: Deleted an extraneous word.
• p. 10 sidebar: Added a 3rd def. to 眠らす.
• p. 11: Added 居睡り as a 2nd rendering of いねむり.
• p. 23: Expanded on the answer to the Verbal Logic Quiz.

July 2, 2021:

• p. 2: I had said originally that Sears had no old images of 眠 on his page because this character was such a late addition to the collection of ancient Chinese characters. Now he does have three pictures, but two don't seem like they represent 眠, and I'm not sure that the third is a match either. Sears himself isn't positive about this, so I decided not to add any of those images and also removed the discussion about Sears in the Etymology Box.
• p. 22: Added a link to the Kanshudo games.

July 27, 2019: Originally published.