Which is longer: snooze, nap, kip, 40 winks or siesta?
How long is a snooze? My boyfriend will invariable take an afternoon snooze which might last anything up to two hours. A nap on the other hand, can be short, quick or even long, and sometimes they are called power naps.
Is 40 winks shorter than a snooze but longer than a kip? Am I right in thinking that kip is considered old-fashioned although etymologically speaking it is probably one of the most recent. And what about the term siesta? OD states 2
Siesta: an afternoon rest or nap, esp. one taken during the hottest hours of the day in a hot climate.
But I'm sure one can take a siesta in the middle of winter.
Questions:
- Which of the above terms has the oldest, (and consequently the longest) history?
- Has anyone ever specified the length or duration of any of these terms? For example, when does a nap stop being a nap?
- And when did power nap first appear?
Nap and 40 Winks, at least, are interchangeable synonyms, both meaning a short period of sleep, with a special emphasis on those periods occurring during the day, or at least at a time other than when one is supposed to be sleeping (or turning in for the night, for the cultural meaning of 'the daily period of sleep at the end of the day').
So one could conceivably nap the entire afternoon away for a period of 4 hours, but at the same time one could turn in for the night at 2 am and get up and 6, and we wouldn't call it a Nap.
Definitions for both from the Merriam-Webster:
Nap: to sleep briefly especially during the day
Forty Winks: a short sleep; nap.
A Power nap is an expression coined by Cornell University social psychologist James Maas. It refers specifically to a short sleep of 20 (or sometimes 30) minutes or less which ends before the occurrence of deep or 'slow-wave' sleep.
Snooze is fairly interchangeable with the above words, but it introduces an element of lightness to the rest.
Snooze: to sleep lightly especially for a short period of time.
Kip seems to be a chiefly British word that's a lot more versatile. It may be the 'Britishness' of it that makes it feel 'old-fashioned' to non-British speakers, perhaps. And while it can be used to mean a nap, it can also refer to nightly turn in.
Kip: bed; eg. Get ready for the kip. OR
sleep, nap; eg. 1. Can I kip here tonight? and 2. After a rigorous walk, I needed to kip down a bit on the daybed.
As can be seen from the examples, kip is more interchangeable with sleep than nap. One can have a short kip or kip down for the night.
Siesta is a lot more specialized, though. One could siesta in winter, but you couldn't at 10 am in the morning or 5 pm in the evening. It specifically refers to a period of sleep in the afternoon, almost always post-lunch.
The special reference to certain countries and climates comes because in many of those countries, those post-lunch hours are (/were pre-air conditioning) too hot to do anything. So siestas are a culturally significant period of time, during which shops might be closed and schools might get out early during 'siesta time' in the summers.
Siesta: a regular period of sleep or rest in the afternoon in some hot countries; an afternoon nap or rest
Dates regarding etymology:
Nap: Possibly the oldest one here. From Old English hnappian "to doze, sleep lightly". In use from c. 1300, and in the construction "take [] nap" c. 1400.
40 Winks: Dr. Kitchiner, The Art of Invigorating and Prolonging Life (1821) Link
Power Nap: Maas, James B.; Wherry, Megan L. (1998). Miracle Sleep Cure: The Key to a Long Life of Peak Performance Link
Snooze: First used in 1789. The meaning "a short nap" is from 1793. Etymology seems to onomatopoeia referring to a snore.
Kip: Seems to have originated in around 1760s from the Danish word kippe (a hut or a mean alehouse) -> Irish slang term for a brothel (Earliest example in Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield (1761)) -> British slang for common lodging-house for tramps and the homeless (c. late 19th century) -> to the act of sleeping itself. The the modern informal or colloquial usage seems to have started in the twentieth century itself. Link
Siesta: The second oldest English word from 1650s, borrowed from the Spanish word siesta, from Latin sexta (hora) "sixth (hour); But its etymology might be the earliest thanks to the Latin root.
Regarding how long a nap must last not to be a sleep, science tries to give us an idea:
How to Take the Perfect Nap:
- Watch the time. The most beneficial naps during the day according to sleep experts are relatively short. This is because short naps only allow individuals to enter the first two stages of sleep. Once you enter slow wave sleep, it's much harder to wake up and you may be left feeling groggy for hours afterwards. Ideally, keep your naps under 20 minutes. Naps of this duration are short enough to fit into a workday but still give the benefits of improved mood, concentration, alertness, and motor skills. If you've got more time, a nap of 45 minutes can also have benefits, including boosts in sensory processing and creative thinking. If you go longer, aim for at least 90 minutes so you'll work your way through all the stages of sleep and won't wake up disoriented.
Snooze(v.) 1789, cant word, of unknown origin, perhaps echoic of a snore. Related: Snoozed; snoozing. The noun meaning "a short nap" is from 1793.
Nap: "short spell of sleep," c.1300, from nap (v.). With take (v.) from c.1400.
Siesta (n.) "mid-day nap," 1650s, from Spanish siesta, from Latin sexta (hora) "sixth (hour)," the noon of the Roman day (coming six hours after sunrise), from sexta, fem. of sextus "sixth" (see Sextus).
Source: Etymonline.com
It appears that NAP has the longest history.