"count sheep" meaning in English

See count sheep in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-count sheep.ogg [Australia] Forms: counts sheep [present, singular, third-person], counting sheep [participle, present], counted sheep [participle, past], counted sheep [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} count sheep (third-person singular simple present counts sheep, present participle counting sheep, simple past and past participle counted sheep)
  1. (idiomatic) To attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring, traditionally by counting imaginary sheep. Tags: idiomatic Categories (topical): Sleep Translations (to attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring): 數羊 (Chinese Mandarin), 数羊 (shǔyáng) (Chinese Mandarin), laskea lampaita (Finnish), compter les moutons (French), бро́и о́вци (brói óvci) (Macedonian), liczyć barany [imperfective] (Polish), liczyć owce [imperfective] (Polish)

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for count sheep meaning in English (3.4kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "counts sheep",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "counting sheep",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "counted sheep",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "counted sheep",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "count sheep (third-person singular simple present counts sheep, present participle counting sheep, simple past and past participle counted sheep)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English predicates",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Mandarin terms with redundant transliterations",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with redundant transliterations",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Sleep",
          "orig": "en:Sleep",
          "parents": [
            "Body",
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring, traditionally by counting imaginary sheep."
      ],
      "id": "en-count_sheep-en-verb-pV03ZqYq",
      "links": [
        [
          "sleep",
          "sleep"
        ],
        [
          "sheep",
          "sheep"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring, traditionally by counting imaginary sheep."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "sense": "to attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring",
          "word": "數羊"
        },
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "shǔyáng",
          "sense": "to attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring",
          "word": "数羊"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "to attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring",
          "word": "laskea lampaita"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "to attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring",
          "word": "compter les moutons"
        },
        {
          "code": "mk",
          "lang": "Macedonian",
          "roman": "brói óvci",
          "sense": "to attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring",
          "word": "бро́и о́вци"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "to attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring",
          "tags": [
            "imperfective"
          ],
          "word": "liczyć barany"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "to attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring",
          "tags": [
            "imperfective"
          ],
          "word": "liczyć owce"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-count sheep.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/90/En-au-count_sheep.ogg/En-au-count_sheep.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/En-au-count_sheep.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "count sheep"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "counts sheep",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "counting sheep",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "counted sheep",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "counted sheep",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "count sheep (third-person singular simple present counts sheep, present participle counting sheep, simple past and past participle counted sheep)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English predicates",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English verbs",
        "Mandarin terms with redundant transliterations",
        "en:Sleep"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring, traditionally by counting imaginary sheep."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "sleep",
          "sleep"
        ],
        [
          "sheep",
          "sheep"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring, traditionally by counting imaginary sheep."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-count sheep.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/90/En-au-count_sheep.ogg/En-au-count_sheep.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/En-au-count_sheep.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "sense": "to attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring",
      "word": "數羊"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "shǔyáng",
      "sense": "to attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring",
      "word": "数羊"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "to attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring",
      "word": "laskea lampaita"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "to attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring",
      "word": "compter les moutons"
    },
    {
      "code": "mk",
      "lang": "Macedonian",
      "roman": "brói óvci",
      "sense": "to attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring",
      "word": "бро́и о́вци"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "to attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring",
      "tags": [
        "imperfective"
      ],
      "word": "liczyć barany"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "to attempt to go to sleep by thinking of something boring",
      "tags": [
        "imperfective"
      ],
      "word": "liczyć owce"
    }
  ],
  "word": "count sheep"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.