眠ねむたい

ね

む

た

い

Common wordJLPTN1Freq.FrequencyTop 50,000

Meanings

i-adjective

sleepy; drowsy

Describes the feeling of wanting to sleep; used in everyday conversation. The reading ねぶたい is a rare dialectal or old-fashioned variant.

昨さく夜やあまり寝ねられなかったので、今日きょうはとても眠ねむたい。
I couldn't sleep much last night, so I'm very sleepy today.
暖あたたかい部屋へやで本ほんを読よんでいたら、眠ねむたくなってきた。
Reading a book in a warm room made me feel drowsy.

Written forms

眠たいUsage91%
- ねむたい
  Standard kanji spelling; the most common written form.
- ねぶたい
  rarely-used kana form
ねむたいUsage6%
Kana spelling is common in casual writing and when the kanji is not needed.
睡たいUsage3%
rarely-used kanji form
- ねむたい
  Rarely used kanji form; 眠たい is overwhelmingly preferred.
- ねぶたい
  rarely-used kana form
ねぶたい
rarely-used kana form

Kanji

眠sleep, die, sleepy
睡drowsy, sleep, die

Similar words

眠ねむい
眠い is a more standard and slightly more formal adjective for 'sleepy'. 眠たい is a colloquial variant with the same meaning, often used in spoken Japanese.

Etymology

Derived from the verb 眠る (ねむる, 'to sleep') with the adjectival suffix たい, which expresses a desire or sensation. The form 眠たい is a colloquial variant of 眠い.