sleep rough
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
sleep outdoors or in uncomfortable conditions
Literally: sleep roughly
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
A homeless man who was sleeping rough around Darlington appeared before the town's magistrates yesterday after he was stopped by police walking through the town with a bag of frozen food.
Joseph Slatter was a local vagrant who travelled the vicinity, sleeping rough, and doing odd jobs.
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 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “sleep rough” mean?
sleep outdoors or in uncomfortable conditions Literally: sleep roughly
Is “sleep rough” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.