Definition of "catnap"

catnap¹

noun
plural catnaps
1. A brief, light sleep, usually during the daytime.
  Quotations
  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.
  1965, The New Yorker, page 28
  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.
  2010, Tizzie Hall, Save Our Sleep: Toddler, page 117
verb
third-person singular simple present catnaps, present participle catnapping, simple past and past participle catnapped
1. (intransitive) To take a catnap (short sleep or nap).
  Quotations
  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.
  2010, Tizzie Hall, Save Our Sleep: Toddler, page 117

catnap²

verb
third-person singular simple present catnaps, present participle catnapping, simple past and past participle catnapped
1. (transitive) To kidnap a cat.
  Quotations
  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?
  1990, Kalliope, page 40
  The man thought, if she refuses, I could catnap it early one Wednesday afternoon while she's dozing. Leave a bogus ransom note?.
  2002, Joseph Ashby Porter, “A Man Wanted to Buy a Cat”, in Touch Wood: Short Stories, page 12
  But the jury was appalled that Amber had stepped over Mort's dead body to steal his cat, and moved by Trish's dignified and heartrending testimony about her suffering when Justine was catnapped.
  2018, Elaine Viets, Catnapped!
  Hellen Gravely: 'You ransacked my hotel, captured my staff with that strange vacuum of yours... And to top it all off, you catnapped my sweetie, my little darling... My precious Polterkitty!'
  2019 October 30, Next Level Games, Luigi's Mansion 3, v1.4.0, Nintendo, level/area: Main Observation Room (15F: Master Suite)