forty winks
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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.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2022 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.
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.
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, INFORMALIf you have forty winks, you have a short sleep. He always has forty winks after supper.
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012
forty winks
a short sleep or nap, especially during the day. informalThis 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.
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
forty ˈwinks
(informal) a short sleep, especially during the day: I managed to get forty winks after lunch.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.
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.
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer