(năp)
noun A brief sleep, often during the day.
intransitive verb napped napped,
nap·ping,
naps - To sleep for a brief period, often during the day; doze.
- To be unaware of imminent danger or trouble; be off guard: The civil unrest caught the police napping.
Related Forms:
Word History: The famous verse 4 of Psalm 121, rendered in the King James Version as
“Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep,” is rendered in a Middle English translation as
“Loo, ha shal not nappen ne slepen that kepeth ireal.” The word
nappen is indeed the Middle English ancestor of our word
nap. Lest it be thought undignified to say that God could nap, it must be realized that our word
nap was at one time not associated only with the younger and older members of society nor simply with short periods of rest. The ancestors of our word, Old English
hnappian and its descendant, Middle English
nappen, could both refer to prolonged periods of sleep as well as short ones and also, as in the quotation from Psalm 121, to sleepiness. But these senses have been lost. Since the word has become less dignified, we would not find
nap used in a modern translation of Psalm 121.
