insomnia

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin īnsomnia (“want of sleep, sleeplessness”),^[2][3][4][5] from īnsomnis (“sleepless”),^[2][6][7][8] formed from in- (“not”) and somnus (“sleep”),^[2][3][4][9] with the noun suffix -ia.^[6][9][10] The Latin word for sleep comes from Proto-Indo-European *swep- (“to sleep”),^[3][4] and is also the source of somnolent.^[7][6] The earliest English form was the anglicized insomnie, in Cockeram's dictionary of 1623,^[5][3][10] which Barnhart takes as probably borrowed from French insomnie, recorded in French from 1555;^[5] the OED compares the French word but dates it from 1680.^[2] The Shorter Oxford also records an early form insomnium.^[10] The Latin form came back into use in the 18th century, by 1758 according to Barnhart and Etymonline.^[5][3] Barnhart notes Spanish insomnio, Portuguese insomnia and Italian insonnio, and takes the word as part of the international vocabulary of science.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Inability to sleep, sleeplessness: 1623, in the form insomnie, in Cockeram's dictionary.^[5][2][3][6]

Semantic evolution

The meaning has stayed close to the Latin one.^[2][7] The Historical Thesaurus files it both under wakefulness and under morbid sleeplessness as a disorder, from 1623.^[11] Modern dictionaries stress that the condition is lasting or chronic: an ongoing, usually abnormal, inability to get to sleep or to sleep without waking.^[6][12][10] The derivative insomniac, a person who suffers from insomnia, is recorded from 1908, formed on the model of maniac;^[5] the Shorter Oxford dates it, as noun and adjective, to the early 20th century.^[10]

Timeline

• 1555 – insomnie recorded in French.^[5]
• 1623 – insomnie, inability to sleep, in Cockeram's dictionary.^[5][2][6]
• 1739 – the OED's first quotation for the sense, in a translation of Le Dran's observations in surgery.^[2]
• 1758 – the Latin form insomnia.^[5][3]
• 1908 – insomniac, a person who suffers from insomnia.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A long-lasting inability to fall asleep or to sleep without waking; sleeplessness: Months of insomnia had left him exhausted.^[12][6][2]

Word family

• insomniac
• insomnious

Related words

• somnolent
• somnambulist
• somniferous

Usage notes

Collins gives agrypnotic as the related adjective, and also records insomnious.^[12]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
12. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins