‖sleep, verb transitive

/slɪəp/
Forms:
slepe, slipShow more Also slepe, slip, slipe.
Origin:
Afrikaans, DutchShow more Afrikaans, from Dutch slepen.
To drag (someone or something).
1838 J.E. Alexander Exped. into Int. II. 211He was seized by a lion, he called in vain for help, and was slipped off among the reeds.
a1858 J. Goldswain Chron. (1946) I. 75Thear apread to be serfishent blood for a Ox but they Kaffers had sleped him into a bead of rushes.
a1858 J. Goldswain Chron. (1949) II. 33They Kaffers had sliped him along the ground and rocks.
1969 A. Fugard Boesman & Lena 6It’s me, that thing you sleep along the roads.
1970 L.A. Hopkins Informant, Cape Town, Western CapeDon’t sleep that thing along the floor.
[1985 S. Afr. Digest 30 Aug. 778South African English is indeed a unique genre of its own...It did bring home the numerous linguistic oddities in a cross-culture where a dress becomes a drag and a drag becomes a sleep.]
To drag (someone or something).
Derivatives:
Hence sleper  noun, an implement which is dragged over the veld to clear bush. Also attributive.
1934 Farming in S. Afr. Dec. 371 (Swart)Where the veld is fairly level, farmers in this area use, today, an implement known locally as a ‘sleper’ which, by being dragged through a patch, uproots the bushes.
1934 C.P. Swart Supplement to Pettman. 159Sleper,..A home-made drag employed by farmers to eradicate undesirable vegetation by uprooting and cutting it up. The frame of this instrument is usually made of steel rails and the cutters are fashioned out of old wagon-springs. Two or three applications of the sleper method serve to keep the veld clean.
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18381985

Derivatives

sleper
slave chair, noun phrasen. phr.Sleepy Hollow, noun phrasen. phr.
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