cushion
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈkʊʃən/
rhymes: -ʊʃən
Forms: form: cushions
Etymology: From Middle English quysshyn, from later Old French coissin (modern coussin), from Vulgar Latin *coxīnus (“seat pad”), derived from Latin coxa (“hip, thigh”) (with the suffix possibly after Latin pulvīnus (“pillow”)), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *koḱs- (“joint, limb”).
Senses: examples: text: “There the cause of death was soon ascertained ; the victim of this daring outrage had been stabbed to death from ear to ear with a long, sharp instrument, in shape like an antique stiletto, which […] was subsequently found under the cushions of the hansom.[…]”
ref: 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Tremarn Case”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:
text: There were many wooden chairs for the bulk of his visitors, and two wicker armchairs with red cloth cushions for superior people. From the packing-cases had emerged some Indian clubs,[…], and all these articles[…] made a scattered and untidy decoration that Mrs. Clough assiduously dusted and greatly cherished.
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
glosses: A soft mass of material stuffed into a cloth bag, used for comfort or support.
glosses: A soft mass of material stuffed into a cloth bag, used for comfort or support.
A throw pillow.
glosses: A soft mass of material stuffed into a cloth bag, used for comfort or support.
A thin, flat pad used on hard chairs and sometimes toilet seats.
glosses: Something acting as a cushion, especially to absorb a shock or impact.
A pad on which gilders cut gold leaf.
glosses: Something acting as a cushion, especially to absorb a shock or impact.
A mass of steam in the end of the cylinder of a steam engine to receive the impact of the piston.
topics: ball-games
billiards
games
hobbies
lifestyle
pool
snooker
sports
glosses: Something acting as a cushion, especially to absorb a shock or impact.
The lip around a table in cue sports which absorbs some of the impact of the billiard balls and bounces them back.
glosses: Something acting as a cushion, especially to absorb a shock or impact.
The pillow used in making bone lace.
glosses: Something acting as a cushion, especially to absorb a shock or impact.
An engraver's pad.
glosses: Something acting as a cushion, especially to absorb a shock or impact.
The rubber of an electrical machine.
glosses: Something acting as a cushion, especially to absorb a shock or impact.
A pad supporting a woman's hair.
examples: text: Wisla made a bright start to the second half and Fulham keeper Mark Schwarzer was twice called into action, first saving Gervasio Nunez's deflected 20-yard effort and then smothering Gargula's free-kick.
But Fulham soon had the cushion of a third goal after more outstanding build-up play.
ref: 2011 November 3, Arindam Rej, “Fulham 4-1 Wisla Krakow”, in BBC Sport:
text: It will most likely not alter the destination of the league title, which still seems bound for City, who retain an 11-point cushion at the top
ref: 2021 March 7, David Hytner, “Manchester United catch City cold as Fernandes and Shaw end winning run”, in The Guardian:
glosses: a sufficient quantity of an intangible object (like points or minutes) to allow for some of those points, for example, to be lost without hurting one's chances for successfully completing an objective.
examples: text: The entry-level wages are abominable, still something like $15,000 a year. You can't possibly be a working class person and live on that in New York City. You need some kind of family "cushion." So what you'll find in publishing is middle class professionals, people who see material about working class people as "foreign."
ref: 1990 February 4, Pam Mitchell, Valerie Miller, “Skepticism, Steel Mills And Everyday Stories”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 29, page 8:
text: Interest coverage is important because it is an indicator of how much cushion a company has in making its interest payments.
ref: 2007, Belverd Needles, Marian Powers, Financial Accounting: Media Enhanced, page 826:
text: If one of the banks has a significant enough cushion of capital and a strong enough balance sheet, then it would not experience a bank run, and the domino effect in panel A would not have occurred.
ref: 2013, Stijn Claessens, Kirsten Forbes, International Financial Contagion, page 85:
topics: business
finance
glosses: a sufficient quantity of an intangible object (like points or minutes) to allow for some of those points, for example, to be lost without hurting one's chances for successfully completing an objective.
Money kept in reserve.
examples: text: But of these kind of second Courses I am the onely Cook; though yet those ordinary practises of our Feasts, as choosing a King, throwing Dice, drinking Healths, trouling it Round, dancing the Cushion and the like, were not invented by the seven Wise Men but my Self, and that too for the common pleasure of Mankind.
ref: 1668, Desiderius Erasmus, translated by John Wilson, edited by Helen Mary Allen, The Praise of Folly, published 1913, page 35:
text: The young man advances to the fiddler, drops a penny in the pot, and gives it to one of his companions. Cushion then dances round the room, followed by the pot, and when they again reach the fiddler, the cushion says, in a sort of recitative, accompanied by the music, 'This dance it will no farther go.'
ref: 1836, George Dubourg, The Violin, page 21:
text: In reference to a nuptial feast, the cushion dance at weddings is thus mentioned in the Apophthegms of King James, the Earl of Worcester and others (1658): “At last when the Masque was ended and Time had brought in the Supper, the Cushion led the Dance out of the Parlour into the Hall;”
ref: 1877, John Brand, Henry Ellis, Observations on Popular Antiquities, page 394:
glosses: The dancer in the cushion dance who currently holds the cushion, or the dance itself.
Synonyms: word: cushion
Hyponyms: word: pillow
word: squab
word: hassock
word: zafu
word: zabuton
Derived terms: air cushion
air cushion vehicle
air-cushion vehicle
barbell cushion
cushion-cosy
cushion cosy
cushion-dance
cushion for the pushin'
cushion gum
cushionless
cushionlike
cushion plant
cushion-smiter
cushion spurge
cushion tire
cushion tyre
cushiony
financial cushion
jump cushion
jumping cushion
king's cushion
lady's cushion
more cushion for the pushin'
mother-in-law's cushion
pin-cushion
pincushion
pin cushion
safety cushion
scatter cushion
seat cushion
speed cushion
T-cushion
thump-cushion
whoopee cushion
whoopie cushion
Related terms: pillow
squab