forty winks

As you’re so tired, why not try to catch forty winks before you leave?

Is it not better Economy of Time, to go to sleep for half an hour,—than to go on noodling all day in a nerveless and semi-superannuated state— […] for any purpose requiring the Energy of either the Body, or the Mind. "A Forty Winks Nap," in a horizontal posture, is the best preparative for any extraordinary exertion of either.

1821, [William Kitchiner], “Sleep”, in The Art of Invigorating and Prolonging Life, by Food, Clothes, Air, Exercise, Wine, Sleep, &c. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Hurst, Robinson, and Co.; Edinburgh: A[rchibald] Constable and Co., →OCLC, page 69

John hitches himself in his oaken settle, and yawns awake from the "forty winks" in which he has indulged after his day's work: […]

1834 January, Dashwood [pseudonym], “New Year’s Eve”, in The Sporting Magazine, volume VIII (2nd Series), number XLV, [London]: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 255

[T]hey cuddled in comfortably for forty winks before the anthem [during a church service].

1897, Hall Caine, chapter XIII, in The Christian: A Story, London: William Heinemann, →OCLC, 1st book (The Outer World), page 63

Mr Bloom in the meanwhile kept dodging about in the vicinity of the cobblestones near the brazier of coke in front of the corporation watchman's sentrybox, who, evidently a glutton for work, it struck him, was having a quiet forty winks for all intents and purposes on his own private account while Dublin slept.

1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 16: Eumaeus]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part III [Nostos], page 574