Couch

Pronunciation

• enPR: kouch, IPA: /kaÊŠtʃ/
• Rhymes: -aÊŠtʃ

From Old French couche.

Full definition of couch

Noun

1. An item of furniture for the comfortable seating of more than one person.
2. Bed, resting-place.
• ShakespeareGentle sleep ... why liest thou with the vile
  In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch?
• BryantLike one that wraps the drapery of his couch
  About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
• 1963, Margery Allingham, The China Governess Chapter 1, The half-dozen pieces … were painted white and carved with festoons of flowers, birds and cupids. …  The bed was the most extravagant piece.  Its graceful cane halftester rose high towards the cornice and was so festooned in carved white wood that the effect was positively insecure, as if the great couch were trimmed with icing sugar.
3. A mass of steeped barley spread upon a floor to germinate, in malting; or the floor occupied by the barley.
   couch of malt
4. (art, painting and gilding)  A preliminary layer, as of colour or size.

Synonyms

• (item of furniture) davenport, divan, settee, sofa

Derived terms

• couch surfing
• uncouched

Descendants

• German: Couch

Verb

1. To lie down; to recline (upon a couch or other place of repose).
• unknown date ShakespeareWhere souls do couch on flowers, we'll hand in hand.
• unknown date ShakespeareIf I court moe women, you'll couch with moe men.
2. To lie down for concealment; to hide; to be concealed; to be included or involved darkly.
• unknown date ShakespeareWe'll couch in the castle ditch, till we see the light of our fairies.
• unknown date I. Taylorthe half-hidden, hallf-revealed wonders, that yet couch beneath the words of the Scripture
3. To bend the body, as in reverence, pain, labor, etc.; to stoop; to crouch.
• unknown date Spenseran aged squire that seemed to couch under his shield three-square
4. (transitive) To lay something upon a bed or other resting place.
• unknown date ShakespeareWhere unbruised youth, with unstuffed brain,
  Does couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign.
5. (transitive) To arrange or dispose as if in a bed.
• unknown date T. BurnetThe waters couch themselves as may be to the centre of this globe, in a spherical convexity.
6. (transitive) To lay or deposit in a bed or layer; to bed.
• unknown date Francis BaconIt is at this day in use at Gaza, to couch potsherds, or vessels of earth, in their walls.
7. (transitive, paper-making) To transfer (e.g. sheets of partly dried pulp) from the wire mould to a felt blanket for further drying.
8. (transitive, medicine) To treat by pushing down or displacing the opaque lens with a needle.to couch a cataract
9. To lower (a spear or lance) to the position of attack.
• Sir Walter ScottHe stooped his head, and couched his spear,
  And spurred his steed to full career.

Synonyms

• lie down (on a couch): lie down, recline

From Old French couchier

Verb

1. To phrase in a particular style, to use specific wording for.He couched it as a request, but it was an order.
• unknown date Blackwood MagazineI had received a letter from Flora couched in rather cool terms.
• 2012, June 26, Genevieve Koski, Music: Reviews: Justin Bieber: Believe, More significantly, rigid deference to Bieber’s still-young core fan base keeps things resolutely PG, with any acknowledgement of sex either couched in vague “touch your body” workarounds or downgraded to desirous hand-holding and eye-gazing.
2. (archaic) To conceal; to hide
• 1662 Thomas Salusbury, Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Dialogue 2:You have overlooked a fallacy couched in the experiment of the stick.

Synonyms

• (phrase in a particular style) explain, express, phrase, term, word

From quitch, from Old English cwice, from Middle Low German kweke.

Noun

1. couch grass, a species of persistent grass, Elymus repens, usually considered a weed.

Synonyms

• (Elymus repens) twitch, quick grass, quitch grass, quitch, dog grass, quackgrass, scutch grass, witchgrass