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SLEEP
Section: User Commands (1)Updated: February 2026
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NAME
sleep - delay for a specified amount of timeSYNOPSIS
sleep ,NUMBER/[,SUFFIX/]...sleep ,OPTION/
DESCRIPTION
Pause for NUMBER seconds, where NUMBER is an integer or floating-point. SUFFIX may be 's','m','h', or 'd', for seconds, minutes, hours, days. With multiple arguments, pause for the sum of their values.
- X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/sleep#slee-help'--helpX'tty: link'
- display this help and exit
- X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/sleep#slee-version'--versionX'tty: link'
- output version information and exit
AUTHOR
Written by Jim Meyering and Paul Eggert.REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to: bug-coreutils@gnu.org
Report Gentoo bugs to: https://bugs.gentoo.org/
GNU coreutils home page: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>
SEE ALSO
sleep(3)
Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/sleep>
or available locally via: info aq(coreutils) sleep invocationaq
Packaged by Gentoo (9.10 (p0))
Copyright © 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.