英语词汇40 winks的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

40 winks. Why 40 winks for a short nap? One story suggests that the Thirty-nine Articles, the articles of faith that Church of England clergy have been required to accept since 1571, are re- sponsible for the phrase. It seems that a writer in Punch (No- vember 16, 1872) quipped: “If a . . . man, after reading through the Thirty-nine Articles were to take forty winks . . .” and that his joke about the long and often tedious articles led to the ex- pression for a short nap. But this isn’t possible unless the writer was repeating a very old joke indeed, for 40 winks is recorded in print as early as the middle 1820s, George Eliot using it in 1866. More likely the 40 follows the old tradition of using 40 to designate an indefinite number, as in Shakespeare’s “I could beat forty of them,” Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and many other instances.

词汇	40 winks
词源	40 winks. Why 40 winks for a short nap? One story suggests that the Thirty-nine Articles, the articles of faith that Church of England clergy have been required to accept since 1571, are re- sponsible for the phrase. It seems that a writer in Punch (No- vember 16, 1872) quipped: “If a . . . man, after reading through the Thirty-nine Articles were to take forty winks . . .” and that his joke about the long and often tedious articles led to the ex- pression for a short nap. But this isn’t possible unless the writer was repeating a very old joke indeed, for 40 winks is recorded in print as early as the middle 1820s, George Eliot using it in 1866. More likely the 40 follows the old tradition of using 40 to designate an indefinite number, as in Shakespeare’s “I could beat forty of them,” Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and many other instances.
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