sleep

Delay in seconds

$ sleep [seconds]

$ sleep [minutes]m

$ sleep 1d 3h

$ sleep 20m && [command]

$ sleep infinity

$ sleep --help

sleep NUMBER[SUFFIX]...
sleep OPTION

sleep pauses execution for a specified amount of time. It accepts floating-point numbers and multiple time arguments which are summed together. The command is commonly used in shell scripts to add delays between operations or to wait for external processes.
GNU sleep supports time suffixes (s, m, h, d) and the special value infinity for indefinite pausing. Multiple arguments are added together, allowing expressions like sleep 1h 30m for 90 minutes.

NUMBER

Amount of time to sleep

Seconds (default if no suffix)

Minutes

Hours

Days

Sleep forever (until interrupted)

Display help and exit

Output version information and exit

Time precision depends on system capabilities; very small fractions may not be honored exactly. The infinity option keeps the process running until killed, consuming minimal resources. Not all implementations support suffixes or multiple arguments (POSIX only requires seconds).

Sleep has been part of Unix since Version 4 Unix (1973). The original implementation only accepted integer seconds. GNU coreutils extended it with floating-point support, time suffixes, and multiple arguments. The infinity feature was added to simplify scripts that need indefinite waits.

wait(1), timeout(1), watch(1)