“Wet Your Whistle”… “Sleep Tight”
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Sleep tight’ is a very well-used phrase in many parts of the English-speaking world. It’s common at bedtime in the form of the rhyme “good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite”.
There are many meanings of the word ‘tight’ and it’s no surprise that there are several theories going the rounds as to the origin of ‘sleep tight’. One is that the phrase dates from the days when mattresses were supported by ropes which needed to be pulled tight to provide a well-sprung bed. This was the notion that was put forward on a 2008 BBC antiques show, when the presenter lay on an oak settle to demonstrate the support provided by the understringing and to confidently pronounce “hence the expression ‘night, night, sleep tight'”. This explanation seems unlikely, as it is the bed rather than its occupant that is tight and no one (in my experience) ever wishes furniture a good night’s sleep. He would have had more luck had he opted to say that ‘settle down to sleep’ derives from ‘settle’ or ‘seat’ – which it does.
Susan Eppes’ line, with its clear link between ‘sleep tight’ and ‘sleep well’, leads us to the most probable explanation for the phrase. The word tightly, although not often used in this way now, means ‘soundly, properly, well’. The earlier phrase ‘tight asleep’ derives from this meaning, as seen in this example from Marie Beauchamp’s novel Elizabeth and her German Garden, 1898:
And once, when there was a storm in the night, she complained loudly, and wanted to know why lieber Gott didn’t do the scolding in the daytime, as she had been so tight asleep.
‘Tight asleep’ just meant ‘soundly asleep’, or to put it another way ‘fast asleep‘, and ‘sleep tight’ just means ‘sleep soundly‘.
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