Catnap
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A brief, light sleep, usually during the daytime.
"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."
- 2 sleeping for a short period of time (usually not in bed) wordnet
- 1 To take a catnap (short sleep or nap). intransitive
"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."
- 2 To kidnap a cat. transitive
"When you suspect your cat's up a tree because he was chased or now locked up in the parked car because someone conspired to catnap him (he is quite the personality), what economic scales could they employ to set ransom?"
- 3 take a siesta wordnet
Example
More examples"A few hours' catnap will do you well."
Etymology
From cat + nap.
From cat + -nap.
More for "catnap"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.