fast asleep

English dictionary entry

Meanings

adj
  1. Synonym of sound asleep.

Pronunciation

en-au-fast asleep.ogg

Word forms

fast asleep

Etymology

The original sense of fast in this term is the "firmly gripped or anchored" sense, thus as if stuck fast (embedded firmly) in sleep, but the homonymy with fast as in "quickly" happens to dovetail with the fact that a very tired person will archetypally fall asleep quickly, which tends to color this term with a connotation of falling asleep both quickly and deeply.

Synonyms

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