doro no yō ni nemuru lit. ‘to sleep like mud’
Japanese idiom, everyday. To sleep very deeply and soundly, without waking up.
Draft Not yet checked by a native Japanese speaker.
How do people use 泥のように眠る
?
Everyday Japanese for the heavy, dead-to-the-world sleep that follows a long day, the kind where you hit the bed and don’t move until morning. It’s nearly always in the past tense, as part of a story: “ベッドに入ると泥のように眠った” (once in bed, I slept like mud). Daijisen defines it as sleeping “with no sign of consciousness”, which is why it suits exhaustion better than a cozy nap.
泥のように眠る
in real sentences
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彼はきょう一日中歩き通しだったので、ベッドに入ると泥のように眠った。
Kare wa kyō ichinichijū arukidōshi datta node, beddo ni hairu to doro no yō ni nemutta.
He’d been walking all day, so the moment he got into bed he slept like a log.
Tatoeba, sentence by Kojimano, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does 泥のように眠る
come from?
Nobody explains where the sleeping phrase comes from, and Daijisen lists it only with a definition. Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (via Kotobank) records an older relative, 泥の如し (dei no gotoshi, “like a dei”), used for someone dead drunk as far back as the Utsubo Monogatari (late 10th century), and it and Daijisen explain the dei as a boneless creature from Chinese lore that lives in the southern seas and goes limp like mud once it’s out of water. Whether today’s “sleep like mud” grew out of that creature, or simply means mud, no source I found says.
Mistakes learners make with 泥のように眠る
Using it for a light or peaceful nap, like a baby dozing in a stroller. The mud is about collapse: a heavy body that won’t stir, so it belongs to the night after a long hike or a double shift. Don’t confuse it with 泥酔 (deisui), which uses the same kanji but means dead drunk.
Other Japanese idioms like 泥のように眠る
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?
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