Couch

How to spell couch

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce couch

What does couch mean?

1. nounA long padded piece of furniture for several people to sit or lie on.
2. verbTo express something in language of a particular style or tone.

Couch in a sentence

• noun

  After the long shift she collapsed onto the couch and fell asleep.

• verb

  The lawyers chose to couch the warning in polite but firm language.

• noun

  The delivery team struggled to fit the new leather couch through the doorway.

• verb

  Managers often couch bad news in vague and reassuring terms.

Where does couch come from?

Language of origin: French

Couch arrived in English in the 1300s from the Old French noun couche, meaning a bed or a place to lie down, which came from the verb coucher, 'to lay or put down'. That French verb descends from the Latin collocare, built from com- 'together' and locare 'to place', so the literal idea was 'to set in place' or 'to lay out'. The Latin locare in turn comes from locus, 'a place', the same root that gives us 'locate' and 'location'. The furniture sense, a long padded seat for sitting or reclining, grew naturally from the original meaning of something you lie down on. The figurative verb sense, to couch a statement in particular words, keeps the older idea of carefully placing or laying something out, in this case ideas rather than a body.

How the word is built

• couch (from Old French couche: a bed or place to lie, from coucher 'to lay down')