Meaning
To "sleep on it" is to wait until the next day before you make a decision. The idea is that a night's rest lets the excitement or panic settle, and in the morning you see the choice more clearly. "It" is the decision: the job offer, the apartment, the expensive laptop.
It's friendly and polite in almost any setting. At work, "Can I sleep on it and get back to you tomorrow?" is a perfectly professional way to ask for time. It also works as advice: "Don't sign anything tonight. Sleep on it."
It can be a soft way to say "not now", too. When a customer tells a salesperson "Let me sleep on it," both of them often know the answer is probably no. That's part of why it's polite: it avoids a hard refusal on the spot.
In a conversation
- Charlotte
- Rohan
- Charlotte
- Rohan
- Charlotte
Say it out loud
Tap a sentence to hear it. Say it after the voice.
Check yourself
Practice · 3 min
Listen, then repeat. "Sleep on it" links together as "slee-pon-it", with the stress on "sleep".
Say it today
Use it once in a real conversation before tomorrow. Out loud counts, even to yourself.