toss and turn

toss and turn (third-person singular simple present tosses and turns, present participle tossing and turning, simple past and past participle tossed and turned)

1. To be unable to settle into a comfortable sleeping position.

   I didn't get a wink of sleep. I was tossing and turning all night long.

   • 1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC:

     for, after tossing and turning the greatest part of the night, and tormenting myself with the falsest notions and apprehensions of things, I fell, through mere fatigue, into a kind of delirious doze