couch
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: kouch
ipa: /kaʊt͡ʃ/
ipa: /kuːt͡ʃ/
rhymes: -aʊtʃ
rhymes: -uːtʃ
Forms: form: couches
form: cowch
Etymology: From Middle English couche, cowche, from Old French couche, from the verb (see below). Doublet of cwtch.
Senses: examples: text: At a casting workshop, an actor was performing a blank scene […] and he had not bothered to make any choices about why he was on stage, what his motivation was, what he was playing. He had decided who he was and where he was (on a couch with his girlfriend) but had not decided what he wanted. So the performance was flat and lifeless.
ref: 2009, Nancy Bishop, Secrets from the Casting Couch: On Camera Strategies for Actors from a Casting Director, London: Methuen Drama, A & C Black, →ISBN:
text: […] I want to try to describe my efforts to take psychoanalysis as a method off the couch and into the work of creating and using a political conference table.
ref: 2010, Alessandra Lemma, Matthew Patrick, “Off the Couch and Round the Conference Table”, in Alessandra Lemma, Matthew Patrick, editors, Off the Couch: Contemporary Psychoanalytic Applications, London: Routledge, →ISBN:
text: It's not a particularly unique living room. It has a window that faces the street, two broken-in beige couches, a few end tables, a television (not the latest model), and a dark blue throw rug in the center of it all. Alice sat down on one end of one couch, and I sat down on the other end.
ref: 2014, Jennifer Mathieu, The Truth About Alice: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Roaring Brook Press, →ISBN:
glosses: An item of furniture, often upholstered, for the comfortable seating of more than one person; a sofa.
examples: text: O Sleepe, O gentle Sleepe, […] O thou dull God, why lyeſt thou with the vilde, / In loathſome Beds, and leau'st the Kingly Couch, / A Watch-caſe, or a common Larum-Bell?
ref: 1596–1599, William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth, Containing his Death: and the Coronation of King Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies, London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, act II, scene i, page 85:
text: [A]pproach thy grave / Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch / About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
ref: c. 1811 or 1816, William Cullen Bryant, “The Fragment [later renamed Thanatopsis]”, in North American Review, Boston, Mass.: O. Everett, published September 1817, →OCLC:
text: [H]e and those / Shall bide eternal bedfellows / Where low upon the couch he lies / Whence he never shall arise.
ref: 1896, A[lfred] E[dward] Housman, A Shropshire Lad, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, →OCLC, stanza XLVI, lines 19–22:
text: 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.
ref: 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
text: The dining room that is typical of the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore differs considerably from the large public dining hall known from other sites such as Perachora or the Argive Heraion. It is small and encloses no more than nine couches, with seven or eight being most common. […] Throughout, we use the term "banquette" to indicate the continuous platform in contrast to "couch," which designates a portion of that banquette reserved for one diner. […] [I]ndividual couches are always marked off by contoured armrests, composed of a single row of fieldstones plastered with clay.
ref: 1997, Nancy Bookidis, Ronald S. Stroud, The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore: Topography and Architecture (Corinth; vol. 18, pt. 3), Princeton, N.J.: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, →ISBN, page 22:
glosses: A bed, a resting-place.
examples: text: A couch was located under the roots of an uprooted tree in a medium dense spruce patch and the second couch was located under a free standing spruce along a regulation channel.
ref: 1998, Kevin Roche, First Phase Report of the Třeboň Otter Project:
glosses: The den of an otter.
examples: text: For the re-lining, the usual method is to strain a new and strong cloth of an even surface upon the stretcher, to rub it down smooth with pumice stone, and then to give it an even couch of paste, a similar couch is then to be applied to the back of the picture after it has been freed from all inequalities; […]
ref: 1839, Jean-François-Léonor Mérimée, W[illiam] B[enjamin] Sarsfield Taylor, “On the Preservation of Pictures, and the Methods Used for Restoring Them”, in The Art of Painting in Oil, and in Fresco: Being a History of the Various Processes and Materials Employed, from Its Discovery, by Hubert and John Van Eyck, to the Present Time: Translated from the Original French Treatise of M. J. F. L. Mérimée, Secretary to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, in Paris. With Original Observations on the Rise and Progress of British Art, the French and English Chromatic Scales, and Theories of Colouring, by W. B. Sarsfield Taylor, Senior Curator of the Living Model Academy, &c. &c., London: Whittaker & Co. Ave Maria Lane, →OCLC, page 231:
text: Once you have chosen which color of underpainting you will use, you should apply the paint to get the values, lighting, and the likeness perfect. The underpainting is applied using a couch of medium and the paint is worked into that medium in very small amounts and in small areas at a time. […] Your paint should glide and then melt into the couch as you work the paint with your brush.
ref: 2008, Jodi Brody, Portrait Painting with Classical Old Masters Techniques: A Guide to Using the Venetian Methods, [Raleigh, N.C.]: Lulu, →ISBN, page 58:
topics: art
arts
qualifier: painting and gilding
glosses: A preliminary layer, as of colour or size.
examples: text: a couch of malt
text: MALTING IN MUNICH. The barley is steeped till the acrospire, in embryo, or seed germ, seems to be quickened; […] As long however as the seed-gum sticks to the husk, it has not been steeped enough for exposure to the underground malt-floor: nor can deficient steeping be safely made up for afterwards by sprinkling the malt couch with a watering can, which is apt to render the malting irregular. […] It [the barley] is now taken out and laid on the couch floor, in a square heap, eight to ten inches high, and it is turned over morning and evening with dexterity, so as to throw the middle portion upon the top and bottom of the new made couch.
ref: 1849, William Ford, “Malting”, in An Historical Account of the Malt Trade and Laws, Shewing the Decline, and Causes of the Decline in the Consumption of Malt; with a Practical Treatise on Malting and Brewing, Deduced from Thirty Years Experience, London: Published by the author, 10, West Square, St. George's, Southwark, and 5, Talbot Court, Gracechurch Street, →OCLC, pages 125–126:
topics: beverages
brewing
business
food
lifestyle
manufacturing
glosses: A mass of steeped barley spread upon a floor to germinate, in malting; or the floor occupied by the barley.
examples: text: He spent years on the couch going over his traumatic childhood.
glosses: Psychotherapy.
raw_tags: as "the couch"
examples: text: If Kamala Harris replaces Joe Biden in the 2024 election, analysts warn that she will lose to the couch.
topics: government
politics
glosses: Voters who opt out of voting, usually by staying home on their couch.
raw_tags: as "the couch"
Synonyms: sense: item of furniture
word: davenport
sense: item of furniture
word: divan
sense: item of furniture
word: settee
sense: item of furniture
word: sofa
Hyponyms: sense: item of furniture
word: chesterfield
sense: item of furniture
word: daybed
sense: item of furniture
word: love seat
Coordinate terms: sense: item of furniture
word: armchair
sense: item of furniture
word: banquette
Derived terms: bed-couch
casting couch
couchancy
couch bed
couchbound
couch dance
couch doctor
couchful
couch gag
couch-grass
couching stitch
couchless
couchlike
couchlock
couch lock
couchmaker
couchmaking
couchmate
couchness
couch potato
couchside
couch-surf
couch surf
couch surfer
couch-surfer
couch-surfing
couch surfing
fly couch
onion couch
on the couch
virtuous couch
water couch
Winnipeg couch