modified
sleepy applies to a person who is nearly overcome by a desire to sleep and, figuratively, suggests either the power to induce sleepiness or a quiet stillness resembling or conducive to sleep a sleepy town, song, etc.; drowsy stresses the sluggishness or lethargic heaviness accompanying sleepiness the drowsy sentry fought off sleep through the watch; somnolent is a formal equivalent of either of the preceding, though it more frequently refers to the stillness of the subject or to the subject's tendency to induce drowsiness the somnolent voice of the speaker; slumberous, also a formal or poetic equivalent, sometimes suggests latent powers in repose a slumberous city
See sleepy in Webster's New World Roget's A-Z Thesaurus II
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