twenty winks
nounEtymology Modeled after forty winks, from the humorous notion that if a short nap is forty winks then a very short nap is twenty winks (half that amount).
1
Idiomatic A very short sleep.
- Near-synonyms: forty winks; see also Thesaurus:shut-eye
- All right, go along to the doting mother, while I stretch out on the settle and chance twenty winks of sleep before Andrew turns up. I never sleep well on the train, as you know.1931, Henry Berman, Life Demands! And Other Plays:
2 more examples
- Twenty winks offered to drivers2003 November 3, “Twenty winks offered to drivers”, in BBC.co.uk:
- Twenty winks [title]2004 November 10, Annalisa Barbieri, “Twenty winks”, in The Guardian: