Slept late? Slept in? Something else?

I just mentioned on another thread that I "slept late" today, meaning that I awoke late. I've heard people say that they "slept in," which always sounds a little odd to me because unless you're camping somewhere you are unlikely to have "slept out."

I'm in the Midwest (Chicago), and I wonder if expressions like this one are regional.

I started hearing "slept in" here on the East Coast about 20 years ago, I think. Before then it was always "slept late" which is still the only thing that comes naturally to me.

Thanks. Your comment about its first appearance, or your first recollection of it, makes me wonder if the change is a generational one.

Younger generation reporting: I think I only hear "sleep in". But often it's "slept in late," possibly marking a difference between "I slept in today" (= I normally get up at 7, but now it was 8) and "I slept in late today" (I normally get up at 7, but now I stayed in bed until noon.)

I'm in the UK, and 'slept in' is the usual phrase here (both Scotland and England) -usually without 'late' at the end.

Thinking about it, I'd use just 'slept in' to express that I missed my alarm and ended up late for something; I might use 'slept in a bit late' if I had no particular reason to get up (e.g. a weekend) but woke later than I'd wanted to... and at the other end of the spectrum -if I'd had no intention of getting up early, and deliberately wanted to catch up on sleep - more natural phrases would be 'I had a lie-in' or 'I had a long-lie'.

Older generation here but I would only say "slept in".

more natural phrases would be 'I had a lie-in'

That's what I would usually say too (UK). 'Slept in' sounds fine; 'slept late' doesn't sound as natural to me.

Do people still use "overslept"?

Do people still use "overslept"?

"Overslept" has a different meaning. To oversleep means to wake up later than you had intended. To sleep in / have a lie-in / sleep late means to deliberately stay in bed until late in the morning. The former is a mistake, the latter is something most people like to do on Saturday mornings.

To sleep in is how we would say it in Australia.. as in I was late for work today becasue I slept in.. (not that many poeple would want to admit that)

I wonder if this is a Briticism that has crossed the Atlantic. I'm really quite sure I never heard it from any American in my youth.

A comment on this US site asks

Can someone tell me the origin of the expression "sleep IN". When did it replace the usual "sleep late"?

and gets the response

I recall everyone using it at college in the early 1980s!

which may imply that it was new to that second poster in the early 1980s. I spent most of the 80s out of the country so it may well have arrived then. At any rate it tends to confirm that NA and I are not hallucinating when we think of it as relatively recent development in the US.

Edited by: VinnyD

The OED has sleep off and sleep out/away; and the Supplement has sleep rough and sleep around (O tempora!) but neither has an entry for "sleep in" (or "sleep late", which probably doesn't need one being self-explanatory).

I don't think anyone has mentioned another variation, "I slept it out", meaning that I slept later than intended (overslept). Several of the first few google results for this phrase are from Irish web pages, leading me to wonder if this is an Irishism.

As for the original question, I think "slept in" is common here in Ireland, but "slept late" wouldn't strike me as odd either. Unlike like happygeek I probably wouldn't use "slept in" for sleeping longer than intended - a "sleep-in" to me is much the same as a "lie-in".

"Overslept" has a different meaning. To oversleep means to wake up later than you had intended. To sleep in / have a lie-in / sleep late means to deliberately stay in bed until late in the morning. The former is a mistake, the latter is something most people like to do on Saturday mornings.

My usage differs, zashibis. I use 'slept in' to mean 'I overslept - both of which I understand means to have awoken later than intended. Whereas, I use 'lie-in' to mean I slept - or even stayed in bed - longer than usual.

Like Tony0001, I too would mean"I overslept" if I said "I slept in". On the other hand, I wouldn't use the expression "lie-in".

First time I know it was used was in 1969 or so when John Lennon and Yoko Ono did their famous sleep-in. Haven't researched it (sick of wikigoogleing) but think they slept in at least twice: in Montreal, Canada and in the Amsterdam Hilton.

I would use "slept it in" and "slept it out" to mean I slept later than intended/missed the alarm clock/ am now running late. I think I use them interchangably but since I very rarely sleep it in/out I can't be sure. If I deliberately stayed in bed later than my normal time eg weekends, then that would be having a lie in, but then I would have to be awake to enjoy the lie in!
Seems to be the "it" is an Irish addtion, Alan. Agreed with your answer to the minority language thread also re Irish. I am now finding that with all the "new community/non Irish children in the school they are picking up the Gaeilge much better than the natives.
Sorry about hijacking.

I'm not surprised that "sleep in" has different meanings to different English speakers. Just looked in Merriam-Webster's and it gives both meanings, as well as a third meaning that I've never heard--"to sleep where one is employed"--and a date, 1827, which I presume reflects the first print citation.

VinnyD, we have the Chicago Lying-In Hospital, part of the University of Chicago medical complex.

German has auschlafen, which means "sleep out" and is similar to "sleep in" (the US version) except it means to sleep until you wake up naturally. These can cause confusion because I've known Germans and Americans to assume that the expressions mean the same thing as each other, since there is overlap.

If you go to bed at midnight and sleep till noon, you could be sleeping in (US) without sleeping out (German), if you set your alarm to wake you up, instead of waiting for it to happen naturally.

Same in Dutch. One thing that is true about the Dutch phrase though (and maybe also about the German, but I just don't know): if you wake up at more or less the same time as you normally do, you have not "slept out" (ausgeschlafen/uitgeslapen), even if you did wake up naturally. Uitslapen requires both waking up naturally and waking up later than usual.

(When waking up naturally but early, you may be+ slept out (= fully awake, having gotten all the sleep 'out of you'), but that's a separate issue, and you +have not slept out.)

This New Zealander would use "sleep in" to mean both oversleeping and spending longer in bed than usual on a day off for example.

A. Sorry I'm late! I slept in.
B. I slept in this morning for the first time in ages- it felt great.

#19 You are right. I know you like to hear this. To my defence: there are a few references to be found on my internet with 'sleep in'.

Sleep in, for me, implies intent.

For example: The blizzard was raging in the evening and school was cancelled for the next morning, so all the kids could sleep in.

or: I stayed up late doing XYZ because I knew I could sleep in the next morning.

Sleep late or oversleep is for situations where one was supposed to wake up at a certain time and did not.

"to sleep in" in Australia and UK for accidentally oversleep, but not exclusively - it could also mean deliberately.
"lie in" for staying in bed after you wake, also a "long lie" in Scotland

To be honest, I thought "slept in" was fairly universal for accidental oversleeping, even in the US. Maybe it was regional there.

n_rb, it does seem to be pretty universal in the US, now. But I don't think it's of long standing here.

n_rb, it does seem to be pretty universal in the US

Not in my circles, I've never heard it used that way. I'll ask around tomorrow at work and see what they think.