Idiom
forty winks
Meaning
A short sleep, an extra sleep, a nap.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“I need forty winks before dinner.”
“The baby was finally asleep, so the tired mother grabbed forty winks on the sofa.”
“Between shifts at the hospital, the young doctor would steal forty winks in the on-call room, her coat folded beneath her head for a pillow.”
Examples
simple
“I need forty winks before dinner.”
contextual
“The baby was finally asleep, so the tired mother grabbed forty winks on the sofa.”
complex
“Between shifts at the hospital, the young doctor would steal forty winks in the on-call room, her coat folded beneath her head for a pillow.”
Origin
From forty + winks, possibly referring to a nap supposedly lasting as long as it takes a person to wink (i.e., blink) forty times.
Key words
Related idioms
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