You Are Getting Sleepy . . .
Claire came across the
word somnambulant and figured out from context that it refers to sleepwalking.
Both halves of the word are indebted to Latin: somnus means sleep, and ambulare means to walk.
The word part -somn- is also found in insomnia and somnolent, and in
the obsolete words levisomnous (light-sleeping or easily awakened), semisomnous
(half asleep), and somniculous (inducing sleep).
The -ambul- sequence shows up in words such as ambulance,
ambulation, ambulatory, circumambulate, funambulation (tightrope-walking),
noctambulate (to wander by night), perambulate (to stroll), and the nonce-word
vicambulate (to wander about in the streets).
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