Dictionary

dogsleep en · NOUN

Etymology

From dog + sleep.

Meanings

1. (uncountable) Light or fitful sleep; a nap that is easily interrupted.
   • [M]any of the convicts made up for their lack of rest by snatching a dog-sleep in the bared bunks. 1874, Marcus Clarke, For the Term of His Natural Life, Penguin, published 2009, page 65:
   • This was Gabriel Varden's state as, nodding in his dog sleep, and leaving his horse to pursue a road with which he was well acquainted, he got over the ground unconsciously, and drew nearer and nearer home. 1841, Charles Dickens, chapter 3, in Barnaby Rudge:
2. (obsolete, uncountable) Feigned sleep.
   • Juvenal, indeed, mentions a drowsy husband, who raised an estate by snoring, but then he is represented to have slept what the common people call dog's sleep 1711 October 11 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “SUNDAY, October 1, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 184; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:

Forms

Relateds

catnap

Translations (1)

fi koiranuni (light or fitful sleep)