sandman

Meaning

Noun

• A figure that brings sleep and dreams by sprinkling magical sand into people's eyes.
• A seller of sand.

Origin

• From sand + -man. The mythological sense may be from , Sandmännchen, as it is apparently first attested in English in the context of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novella The Sandman (1816). The German is attested in the relevant sense since at least the mid-18th century.