somnolent

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Causing literal or figurative sleepiness.

   As she reached toward the last few fiddleheads growing on the second hummock, her hand froze. She heard the somnolent buzzing of flies again.

Simplified etymology

Somnolent comes ultimately from Latin somnus, “sleep.” Its early English meaning was “causing sleepiness,” rather than simply “sleeping.” The same root appears in insomnia, “lack of sleep,” and somnambulist, literally a sleepwalker.

First attested in 1615. Borrowed from French somnolent, from Old French sompnolent, from Latin somnolentus, from somnus (“sleep”).

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