fall asleep

fall asleep (third-person singular simple present falls asleep, present participle falling asleep, simple past fell asleep, past participle fallen asleep)

1. To pass from a state of wakefulness into sleep.
   • 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter II, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, →OCLC:

     She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact, drowsily realising that since she had fallen asleep it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky.

2. (idiomatic, figurative) To be affected by paresthesia; to go numb.

   My left leg has fallen asleep!

3. (poetic, euphemistic) To die (often seen on gravestones).
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Acts 7:60:

     And he kneeled downe, and cried with a loud voice, Lord lay not this sinne to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleepe. And Saul was consenting vnto his death.

• (pass from a state of wakefulness into sleep): drift off, drop off, go to sleep, nod off; See Thesaurus:fall asleep
• (poetic, euphemistic: to die): pass, pass away, pass over

• (pass from a state of wakefulness into sleep): awake, awaken, wake, wake up

• fall asleep in the Lord

• put to sleep