to sleep
Katheudo denotes bodily sleep and, in explicit contrasts, sleep-language set against wakefulness or death.
The prevailing use depicts ordinary bodily sleep: people are found asleep, fall asleep, or sleep through the night. A smaller group of statements sets the term against death, while several exhortatory or contrastive clauses place it alongside wakefulness.
Senses in use
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Ordinary bodily sleep · dominant
Present participles identify people found asleep in Matthew 26:40 and Mark 14:37, while the imperfect form in Matthew 8:24 describes the person in the boat as sleeping amid the waves. In Matthew 25:5 the group becomes drowsy and falls asleep, and in Luke 22:46 the sleeping hear the command to rise and pray.
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Sleep in statements set against death · occasional
In Luke 8:52, Mark 5:39, and Matthew 9:24, the present singular form is used of a girl or child in clauses that explicitly say she is not dead but sleeps. The APB therefore presents the term within a direct death-and-sleep contrast in each verse.
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Sleep contrasted with wakefulness · occasional
In 1 Thessalonians 5:6, the present subjunctive plural occurs in the appeal not to sleep but to keep awake and be sober; 1 Thessalonians 5:10 similarly contrasts being awake or asleep. Ephesians 5:14 addresses the present participial “sleeper” with a call to awake and arise from the dead.
In the Anselm Project Bible: The APB commonly presents the term with “sleeping,” “sleeps,” or “fell asleep,” and uses “asleep” and “sleeper” in contrastive clauses. These renderings confirm the verses' scenes without establishing a separate English equivalent in every occurrence.