texts
student asking question

What's he mean by "count sheep?"

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

By "count sheep," he's referring to a method of getting to sleep! The method is when you imagine sheep jumping over a fence as you count them! The counting is supposed to make you sleepy. This is said to come from the time of medieval Britain when shepherds had to do a headcount of their sheep to make sure they were all in the herd. The shepherds would do it before they slept! Ex: Did you try counting sheep? Ex: I couldn't fall asleep last night, so I counted sheep. But that didn't work either. Ex: Before I get to 100 sheep, I always fall asleep.

Popular Q&As

04/17

Complete the expression with a quiz!

Let

me

just

say

that

I'm

glad

that

I

live

in

this

century,

where

all

I

have

to

do

is

count

sheep.