sleeper cell
noun
Simple meaning
A group of people who inconspicuously remain dormant in a community until activated, by a prearranged signal, to perform acts of espionage, sabotage.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sleeperselSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈslipɚsɛl
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.
noun
A group of people (sleepers) who inconspicuously remain dormant in a community until activated, by a prearranged signal, in order to perform acts of espionage, sabotage, or terrorism.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A group of people (sleepers) who inconspicuously remain dormant in a community until activated, by a prearranged signal, in order to perform acts of espionage, sabotage, or terrorism.
Used this way, sleeper cell is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
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.