dogsleep

• dog-sleep, dog sleep, dog's sleep

From dog +‎ sleep.

dogsleep (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) Feigned sleep. [17th–19th c.]
   • 1711 October 12 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “MONDAY, 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:

     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

     The spelling has been modernized.

2. Light or fitful sleep; a nap that is easily interrupted. [from 17th c.]
   • 1841, Charles Dickens, chapter 3, in Barnaby Rudge:

     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.

   • 1874, Marcus Clarke, For the Term of His Natural Life, Penguin, published 2009, page 65:

     [M]any of the convicts made up for their lack of rest by snatching a dog-sleep in the bared bunks.

• catnap