Definition of "repose"

Dark and deserted as it was, the night was full of small noises, song and chatter and rustling, telling of the busy little population who were up and about, plying their trades and vocations through the night till sunshine should fall on them at last and send them off to their well-earned repose.

1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons

You would not rob us of our repose, would you, comrades? You would not have us too tired to carry out our duties?

1945 August 17, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 6, in Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg

So may thy lineage find at last repose I thus adjured him

c. 1805, Henry Francis Cary (translator), Dante, Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto 10

Over the whole landscape lay a repose and a peace so perfect that no one could have suspected the close proximity of the capital.

1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 279

Within a thicket I repos’d.

1614–1615, Homer, “(please specify the book number)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615; republished in The Odysseys of Homer, […], volumes (please specify the book number), London: John Russell Smith, […], 1857,

For there may Slid repose beneath the sun and smile at the gods above him with all the smiles of Slid, and be a happier god than Those who sway the Worlds, whose work is Life and Death.

1905, [Edward Plunkett,] Lord Dunsany, The Gods of Pegāna‎, London: Elkin Mathews, […], page 15

But these thy fortunes let us straight repose / In this divine cave's bosom.

1614–1615, Homer, “(please specify the book number)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615; republished in The Odysseys of Homer, […], volumes (please specify the book number), London: John Russell Smith, […], 1857,

Pebbles […] reposed in those cliffs amongst the earth […] are left behind.

1695, John Woodward, “(please specify the page)”, in An Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth: And Terrestrial Bodies, Especially Minerals: […], London: […] Ric[hard] Wilkin […]

Now woorthy Tamburlaine, haue I repoſ’d,In thy approoued Fortunes all my hope,What thinkſt thou man, ſhal come of our attempts?

c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, Act II, scene iii

The king reposeth all his confidence in thee.

1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene iv]

It is upon these that the soul may repose.

1832, [Isaac Taylor], Saturday Evening. […], London: Holdsworth and Ball