How to Use nod off in a Sentence

nod off

verb
  • Jupiter acts as a guardian angel, but the head that wears the halo has been known to nod off.
    SFChronicle.com, 11 Aug. 2020
  • Shota watches the two of us from his seat, nodding off.
    Bryan Washington, The New Yorker, 29 Aug. 2023
  • For that dance, Mr. Gordon was inspired by seeing drug addicts nod off in the streets.
    New York Times, 4 Feb. 2022
  • The other three physicians were sleeping, and Drew nodded off as well.
    Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi, Discover Magazine, 23 Feb. 2023
  • Riley didn't remember all the details of the film—she'd nodded off a bit in the middle—but it had been based on a true story.
    Jessica Leon, EW.com, 27 Feb. 2023
  • Blackout shades and curtains are a dream for light sleepers and for parents who want wide-awake children to nod off at nap time.
    Rachel Klein, Popular Mechanics, 27 Feb. 2023
  • Some senators appeared to nod off at their desks, stirring in time to cast their votes on amendments.
    Joey Garrison, USA TODAY, 6 Mar. 2021
  • Crack was a different drug because dope had guys nodding off.
    Insanul Ahmed, Men's Health, 1 Aug. 2023
  • The video shared in the comments of the Facebook post appears to show the president nodding off to sleep while listening to one of the speakers at the community event.
    Brieanna J. Frank, USA TODAY, 24 Aug. 2023
  • During a car trip in 1946, his father nodded off at the wheel and crashed into a sidewall, killing Ellsberg’s mother and younger sister.
    Hillel Italie, Fortune, 16 June 2023
  • That leaves an extra hour for both nodding off and waking up, with another 30 minutes between sessions so the crew can clean the pods and replace the linens.
    Tori Latham, Robb Report, 12 Apr. 2023
  • By the end of the line, many who remained on board were noticeably older — nodding off, gazing out the window, stretching their shoulders.
    Victoria Kim Chang W. Lee, New York Times, 22 Sep. 2023
  • People who nodded off and died after taking opioids are often found hunched over with their legs curled under them.
    Natalie Kitroeff Meridith Kohut, New York Times, 3 Mar. 2024
  • As one mother nodded off, her eyelids heavy after giving birth less than two weeks earlier, a nurse came in and whisked her baby away.
    Lauretta Charlton, New York Times, 28 Jan. 2024
  • Television is not the place to see this beautiful but exacting film, and many viewers will lose interest or nod off.
    Kyle Smith, National Review, 24 Sep. 2021
  • The study’s 18 participants took less time to nod off, on average, and spent more time in bed actually sleeping.
    Claudia Wallis, Scientific American, 18 Nov. 2017
  • That means night owls are wired differently from people who seem to automatically wake up at the crack of dawn and nod off at an early hour.
    Linda Carroll, NBC News, 11 Sep. 2023
  • Donald Trump's criminal trial seemingly got off to a slow start, as evidenced by a first-hand account of him nodding off on the morning of his first day in court.
    Kyler Alvord, Peoplemag, 15 Apr. 2024
  • Here, researchers discovered that the birds nodded off thousands of times per day, engaging in microsleeps that averaged just four seconds each but added up to more than 11 hours of sleep per day.
    Brian Handwerk, Smithsonian Magazine, 30 Nov. 2023
  • The woman testified that Banda eventually nodded off at the house, giving her an opportunity to escape about noon March 15.
    David Hernandez, San Diego Union-Tribune, 7 Sep. 2023
  • Weerasethakul’s movies have a trancelike quality, sometimes practically encouraging the viewer to nod off for a couple minutes, but very few artists like him are working in cinema today.
    David Sims, The Atlantic, 1 Apr. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'nod off.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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