Naps

How to spell naps

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce naps

What does naps mean?

1. nounPlural of nap: short periods of sleep, usually taken during the day.
2. verbThird-person singular of nap: sleeps for a short time, especially during the day.

Naps in a sentence

• noun

  Short afternoon naps help me concentrate through the evening.

• verb

  Our youngest child naps every afternoon right after lunch.

• noun

  The clinic recommends regular naps for shift workers recovering from night duty.

• verb

  The old cat naps on the warm windowsill all day.

Where does naps come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word nap comes from Old English hnappian, a verb meaning 'to doze' or 'to sleep lightly', which is why the modern sense still points to a brief, shallow sleep rather than a full night's rest. The Old English form had relatives in other Germanic languages, including Old High German hnaffezan, all sharing the idea of nodding off. Over the centuries the awkward initial 'hn' cluster simplified to a plain 'n', leaving the short, blunt spelling we use today. The plural and verb form simply adds -s, so naps stays phonetically transparent with no silent letters or hidden vowels. A separate, unrelated noun nap, meaning the raised fuzzy surface of a fabric, came later from Dutch and is a different word entirely, though it happens to look identical.

How the word is built

• nap (short sleep / verb)
• -s (plural noun or third-person singular verb ending)