Chesterfield

How to spell chesterfield

12 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce chesterfield

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does chesterfield mean?

1. nounA large couch, typically with deep buttoned leather upholstery and rolled arms; in Canada, any sofa.

Chesterfield in a sentence

• The family gathered on the leather chesterfield to watch the match.

• She reupholstered the old chesterfield in dark green velvet.

Where does chesterfield come from?

Language of origin: Other

This word is an eponym, taken straight from the title of the Earls of Chesterfield, an English noble line whose seat lay near the town of Chesterfield in Derbyshire. The place name itself joins the Old English ceaster, a borrowing of the Latin castra meaning 'military camp or fort', with feld, meaning 'open country', so the original sense was simply 'open land by the old Roman fort'. By the nineteenth century the family name had become attached to fashionable furniture and clothing, much as 'wellington' attached to boots; the deep buttoned leather sofa and the formal overcoat are both said to honour a particular earl with a taste for such things, though the precise earl is not documented with certainty. In Canada the sofa sense broadened until 'chesterfield' served as the everyday word for any couch. The spelling is reassuringly literal once you see the two familiar pieces, Chester and field, hiding inside it.

How the word is built

• Chester (English place name, from Latin castra 'camp, fort')
• field (open land); a surname-and-title turned eponym, used whole