Sleep tight

Origin of: Sleep tight

Sleep tight

This expression dates from the latter half of the 19th century and simply means sleep well and soundly. Strictly speaking, it should be sleep tightly as in soundly. This use of the word tight is still found in expressions like a tight ship or a tight team, which means sound or good organisation. The addition sometimes of the rhyming, don’t let the bedbugs bite, appears much later, from the mid-20th century.