Agrypnotic

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Relating to or denoting the inability to fall asleep; describing a state characterized by persistent wakefulness despite efforts to rest; pertaining to conditions marked by sleep disturbance or sleeplessness
2. Associated with the failure to achieve sleep; referring to an experience of prolonged alertness when one desires to sleep; describing phenomena involving insomnia or difficulty initiating sleep
3. Connected to an absence of sleep onset; indicating a persistent condition of wakefulness without respite; applying to a disorder or state where sleeping proves elusive or unachievable

Etymology: "Agrypnotic" comes from the Greek "ágrypnos", meaning "sleepless," which is itself built from "a-," a negative prefix meaning "not," and "hypnos," the Greek word for sleep. The same "hypnos" stands behind "hypnosis," "hypnotic," and the god Hypnos, who was personified as sleep in Greek myth. "Agrypnotic" therefore reverses the sense of its more familiar cousin: where "hypnotic" describes something that induces sleep, this word describes the state of being kept awake. The word is a formal, learned coinage built from Greek parts rather than something that drifted into English over centuries. Writers working in English drew on classical vocabulary in this way, usually to name a condition or quality with precision, and this one follows the same pattern, adding the "-ic" adjectival ending to the Greek root.

Synonyms: wakeful, sleepless

Antonyms: soporific, somnolent