polyphasic
Americanadjective
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having more than two phases.
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habitually doing more than one thing at a time.
a polyphasic personality.
Etymology
Origin of polyphasic
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Mice are nocturnal and are "polyphasic sleepers" -- napping for a few minutes before arousing briefly to survey their environment and then resuming their slumber.
From Science Daily • Nov. 21, 2024
Niall Boyce, an English professor at the University of London, argued that polyphasic sleep may not necessarily have been the norm.
From National Geographic • Jan. 4, 2024
Cats are nocturnal, and dogs are polyphasic sleepers, which means they have about three sleep/wake cycles per hour at night, says Jerry Klein, the American Kennel Club’s chief veterinary officer.
From Washington Post • Nov. 18, 2021
Yes, there is a jape about polyphasic sleep.
From The Verge • Feb. 26, 2020
From an infant's polyphasic snippets of slumber to the “hyper-associative problem-solving benefits” of REM dreaming, Walker's investigation is anything but soporific.
From Nature • Oct. 10, 2017
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
