"sleep with one eye open" meaning in English

See sleep with one eye open in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: sleeps with one eye open [present, singular, third-person], sleeping with one eye open [participle, present], slept with one eye open [participle, past], slept with one eye open [past]
Etymology: Some animals sleep with one eye open, so as to remain alert to threats. Head templates: {{en-verb|sleep<,,slept> with one eye open}} sleep with one eye open (third-person singular simple present sleeps with one eye open, present participle sleeping with one eye open, simple past and past participle slept with one eye open)
  1. (figurative) To remain vigilant at all times, especially by remaining partially awake or sleeping only lightly so as to avoid being caught off guard. Tags: figuratively Categories (topical): Sleep Translations (Translations): nukkua toinen silmä auki (Finnish), ne dormir que d’un œil (French), spać z jednym okiem otwartym [imperfective] (Polish), dormir com um olho aberto (Portuguese)

Download JSON data for sleep with one eye open meaning in English (2.3kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Some animals sleep with one eye open, so as to remain alert to threats.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "sleeps with one eye open",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "sleeping with one eye open",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "slept with one eye open",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "slept with one eye open",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "sleep<,,slept> with one eye open"
      },
      "expansion": "sleep with one eye open (third-person singular simple present sleeps with one eye open, present participle sleeping with one eye open, simple past and past participle slept with one eye open)",
      "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 topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Sleep",
          "orig": "en:Sleep",
          "parents": [
            "Body",
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To remain vigilant at all times, especially by remaining partially awake or sleeping only lightly so as to avoid being caught off guard."
      ],
      "id": "en-sleep_with_one_eye_open-en-verb-wrIDq4hI",
      "links": [
        [
          "vigilant",
          "vigilant"
        ],
        [
          "off guard",
          "off guard"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative) To remain vigilant at all times, especially by remaining partially awake or sleeping only lightly so as to avoid being caught off guard."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "nukkua toinen silmä auki"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "ne dormir que d’un œil"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "tags": [
            "imperfective"
          ],
          "word": "spać z jednym okiem otwartym"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "dormir com um olho aberto"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "sleep with one eye open"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Some animals sleep with one eye open, so as to remain alert to threats.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "sleeps with one eye open",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "sleeping with one eye open",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "slept with one eye open",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "slept with one eye open",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "sleep<,,slept> with one eye open"
      },
      "expansion": "sleep with one eye open (third-person singular simple present sleeps with one eye open, present participle sleeping with one eye open, simple past and past participle slept with one eye open)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English verbs",
        "Translation table header lacks gloss",
        "en:Sleep"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To remain vigilant at all times, especially by remaining partially awake or sleeping only lightly so as to avoid being caught off guard."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "vigilant",
          "vigilant"
        ],
        [
          "off guard",
          "off guard"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative) To remain vigilant at all times, especially by remaining partially awake or sleeping only lightly so as to avoid being caught off guard."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "nukkua toinen silmä auki"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "ne dormir que d’un œil"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "tags": [
        "imperfective"
      ],
      "word": "spać z jednym okiem otwartym"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "dormir com um olho aberto"
    }
  ],
  "word": "sleep with one eye open"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c 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.