count sheep
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
INSOMNIACS bored with counting sheep can now organise their financial affairs at any time of the day or night, seven days a week with the launch of Firstdirect, Midland Bank's telephone banking service.
Give your head a chance — count sheep if you can't get to sleep.’
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “count sheep” mean?
to try to fall asleep Literally: enumerating sheep
Is “count sheep” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.