fall 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 40817384 ↗:

     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. (idiom, 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), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981 ↗, 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

• French: endormir
• German: einschlafen
• Italian: addormentarsi, cadere addormentato
• Portuguese: adormecer
• Russian: засыпа́ть
• Spanish: dormirse

• German: entschlafen
• Italian: dormire
• Russian: почи́ть