set in or settle in

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Hello,

Which sentence sounds natural?

  1. Fatigue finally set in and he fell asleep.
  2. Fatigue finally settled in and he fell asleep.

Thanks!

2

The first.

3

Thanks, Bev.
By the way, is it because the latter would work better with animate objects, as opposed to “fatigue”?
As in:
He settled in in his new house.

4

That sounds pretty accurate, Tort.

5

What about this one:
His fatigue settle in his voice.

6

I suppose you could say ‘fatigue settled in his voice’ at a stretch, but really I think you would need to say ‘(His) fatigue could be heard in his voice’. Definitely not, ‘his fatigue settle…’ though.

7

I came across the phrase here:
books.google.com.my/books?id=7kM … CCwQ6AEwAA

8

There it is part of a bigger phrase. Above you posted it as if it were a sentence in its own right.
I can’t see the beginning of the sentence on that link, but the verb ‘to let’ changes the meaning.

After the earth tremor, he had to let things settle before he could get to his feet.
She decided to let the atmosphere settle before she tried to discover the cause of the argument.

9

Thank you.