go to bed—
1. retire for the night:
- He said he knew the sort of place I meant; where everybody went to bed at eight o’clock….
2. (euph.) have sex:
- A young doctor may think it all right to propose “going to bed” to a nurse he has only just met.
3. (of a newspaper, journal, etc.) go to press:
- He nearly always had to stay on at the office till after midnight when the paper “went to bed.”
Note: The expression does not correlate in meaning with the phrase take to bed—remain in bed through sickness or other cause:
- I came down with a cold and took to bed for a couple of days.
go to sleep—
1. = go to bed 1:
- Suppose you go to sleep, that you may get up in time enough.
2. fall asleep:
- I did not go to bed and I did not go to sleep. It was well past midnight, but I managed to get the number of the ambassador’s residence in Bern.
3. (of a part of the body) become numb so that a person doesn’t feel it:
- Wegner pinches his arm to see whether he feels it…. He feels just a little but not much, like a part that is gone to sleep.
4. (euph.) die; pass away:
- …Thaddeus, the old man of West Cambridge, who outwatched the rest so long after they had gone to sleep in their own churchyards.