How many hours is 40 winks? and where did it originate from?

Answer 1

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.



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Answer 2

40 winks is just 40 seconds and not an hour. It originate from timing the occurrence of a thing in just a wink of an eye. Thus, when you say 40 kinds, the time is 40 seconds.

Answer 3

Forty (40) winks - "Early colonists simply would 'got to bed' or 'take a nap,' as they had in England, but in the 1820s our terms '40 winks' and 'cat nap' grew common," according to Stuart Berg Flexner in "Listening to America" (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1982).

Charles Earle Funk, in "Heavens to Betsy!" (Harper & Row, New York, 1955) hazards a guess as to why 40: "to take forty winks - Though I'm not saying that the reading of the Thirty-nine Articles has an actual bearing on the 'forty winks' or short nap that is likely to succeed that reading - or interrupt it - such a sequel could be inferred. The Thirty-nine Articles, for the benefit of the unenlightened, are the articles of faith of the Church of England which the clergy are required to accept. Adoption became legal by parliamentary action in 1571 in the reign of Elizabeth I. Needless to say, the perusal of these articles is likely to be considered most dreary. At least they led a writer in 'Punch' (November 16, 1872) to say: 'If a .man, after reading through the Thirty-nine Articles, were to take forty winks' and that is the first literary record of this precise number of winks."

Actually, I've heard the expression "to catch forty winks."

Throwing this in for good measure on the "40" issue. "How Did It Begin?" by R. Brasch (Pocket Books, New York, 1966) has a whole section on the number 40. "Once it was believed that there was magic in figures and the number 40 especially was thought to possess supernatural powers.

Answer 4

40 winks is a short nap usually during the day time, usually an unprepared nap, while on the sofa. I'd estimate it at no longer then an hour

Answer 5

40 seconds

Answer 6

depends how fast you wink....?