forty winks

forty winks

A nap or a brief sleep. When you have a baby for the first time, you are suddenly forced to learn how to operate on only forty winks at a time. I'm going to go grab a quick forty winks before everyone starts arriving for the dinner party. I don't know how I'm so awake—I took the red-eye, and I only got about forty winks on the plane.

See also: forty, wink

Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

forty winks

Fig. a nap; some sleep. I could use forty winks before I have to get to work. I need forty winks before I get started again.

See also: forty, wink

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

forty winks

A brief nap, as in There's just time for forty winks before we have to leave. This expression supposedly was first recorded in 1828 and relies on wink in the sense of "sleep," a usage dating from the 14th century.

See also: forty, wink

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

forty winks

OLD-FASHIONED, INFORMAL

If you have forty winks, you have a short sleep. He always has forty winks after supper.

See also: forty, wink

Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012

forty winks

a short sleep or nap, especially during the day. informal

This expression dates from the early 19th century, but wink in the sense of ‘a closing of the eyes for sleep’ is found from the late 14th century.

See also: forty, wink

Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

forty ˈwinks

(informal) a short sleep, especially during the day: I managed to get forty winks after lunch.

See also: forty, wink

Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

forty winks

n. a nap; sleep. (Usually with a quantifier. Either forty or some, a few, a bunch of, etc.) I could use forty winks before I have to get to work.

See also: forty, wink

McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

forty winks

A short nap. A wink has meant a sleep since the fourteenth century, when William Langland wrote “Thenne Wakede I of my wink” (Piers Ploughman, 1377). There is an apocryphal story about the origin of forty winks, stemming from an article in Punch (1872), the English humor magazine, about the long and tedious articles of faith required for Church of England clergy (“If a man, after reading through the thirty-nine Articles, were to take forty winks . . .”). However appealing this source, the term had appeared in print nearly a half-century earlier (in Pierce Egan’s Tom and Jerry, 1828), and its true origin has apparently been lost.

See also: forty, wink

The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer