English Reference
Idiom idiom

eat, breathe, and sleep


To devote one's time obsessively to.

Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.


SIMPLE

She eats, breathes, and sleeps tennis every single day.

CONTEXTUAL

If you want to become a professional chef, you must eat, breathe, and sleep cooking.

COMPLEX

The dedicated artist truly eats, breathes, and sleeps her craft, often spending entire nights in the studio perfecting her technique.


Related idioms8entries
  1. 01

    beauty sleep

    Originally, sleep taken before midnight, on the belief that early sleep hours conduce to beauty and health; now (chiefly humorous), sleep at any time needed by one to stay beautiful; (countable) an instance of such sleep.

  2. 02

    big sleep

    Death.

  3. 03

    bite to eat

    A snack or quick meal.

  4. 04

    breathe a sigh of relief

    to be relieved; to feel relief.

  5. 05

    breathe a word

    To divulge even part of a secret (usually used with a negative).

  6. 06

    breathe down someone's neck

    To follow or supervise someone too closely, causing discomfort for that person.

  7. 07

    breathe easy

    To relax or feel secure about something.

  8. 08

    breathe one's last

    To die.

Last updated August 10, 2026