catnap

See also: cat-nap and cat nap

English

From cat +‎ nap.

catnap (plural catnaps)

A brief, light sleep, usually during the daytime. [from 1820s]
- 1965, The New Yorker, page 28:
  Besides, I reflected, Joe might easily have become a catnapper, as so many millions of other Americans had become since Sarah Perkins, during the campaign, had made it so widely known that although the incumbent President slept in a bed with the covers over him for three and sometimes four hours a night, she herself never slept at all except for the catnaps.
- 2010, Tizzie Hall, Save Our Sleep: Toddler, page 117:
  A toddler who is still having two day sleeps will generally have one good sleep and one catnap, and a toddler who is around three years of age and getting close to dropping her day sleep will catnap.

a brief, light sleep

catnap (third-person singular simple present catnaps, present participle catnapping, simple past and past participle catnapped)

(intransitive) To take a catnap (short sleep or nap). [from 1850s]
- 2010, Tizzie Hall, Save Our Sleep: Toddler, page 117:
  A toddler who is still having two day sleeps will generally have one good sleep and one catnap, and a toddler who is around three years of age and getting close to dropping her day sleep will catnap.

to take a short nap

From cat +‎ -nap.

catnap (third-person singular simple present catnaps, present participle catnapping, simple past and past participle catnapped)