rapid eye movement sleep
n · noun
Simple meaning
A unique phase of sleep in mammals and birds, having random rapid movement of the eyes, accompanied by low muscle tone throughout the body.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
rapuhdymoovmuhntsleepSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɹæpəˈdaɪˈmuvməntsˈlip
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
n
REM sleep or REMS
A unique phase of sleep in mammals (including humans) and birds, characterized by random rapid movement of the eyes, accompanied by low muscle tone throughout the body, and the propensity of the sleeper to dream vividly.
noun
A recurring sleep state during which dreaming occurs; a state of rapidly shifting eye movements during sleep
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (REM sleep or REMS) a unique phase of sleep in mammals (including humans) and birds, characterized by random rapid movement of the eyes, accompanied by low muscle tone throughout the body, and the propensity of the sleeper to dream vividly.
Used this way, rapid eye movement sleep is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.