dogsleep

alternative dog-sleep · alternative dog sleep · alternative dog's sleep

1. uncountableLight or fitful sleep; a nap that is easily interrupted.First known use 17th c.

   [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

   1 more example

   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. obsoleteuncountableFeigned sleep.First known use 17th–19th c.

   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