schliefst

Schliefst is not a separate lexical item in modern German; it is the second-person singular simple past tense (Präteritum) form of the verb schlafen, meaning you slept. It appears in literary or formal narrative language and is less common in everyday speech, where the present perfect tense ist typically used for past events.

Usage and characteristics: In standard written German, du schliefst describes a past action completed in the singular informal address. In contemporary spoken German, speakers more often say du hast geschlafen, using the present perfect. The simple past form schliefst is therefore mostly encountered in literature, historical texts, or regional dialects. The corresponding forms for other persons are ich schlief, er schlief, wir schliefen, ihr schlieft, sie schliefen.

Etymology and related forms: Schlafen is one of the foundational German verbs meaning “to sleep.” Its Präteritum forms, including schliefst, derive from Old High German slāfist or similar historical forms and ultimately from Proto-Germanic roots related to sleep. The related past participle is geschlafen, used with auxiliary haben to form perfect tenses.

Example: Du schliefst, als der Wecker klingelte. This sentence uses schliefst to place the action in the past from the perspective of the second-person subject.

See also: Schlafen; German verb conjugation; Präteritum.