Definition
nounA piece of furniture, usually flat and soft, on which to rest or sleep.
nounA piece of furniture, usually flat and soft, on which to rest or sleep., A mattress.
Sentence Examples
I have to go to bed.
Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed.
The bed seemed to occupy most of the room.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree
Proto-Germanic *badją
Proto-West Germanic *badi
Old English bedd
Middle English bed
English bed
Inherited from Middle English bed, bedde, from Old English bedd, from Proto-West Germanic *badi, from Proto-Germanic *badją (“resting-place, plot of ground”).
Cognates
Cognate with Scots bed, North Frisian baad, beed, Bēr, Saterland Frisian Bääd, West Frisian bêd, Cimbrian pett, Dutch bed, Dutch Low Saxon bedde, German Bett, Bette, German Low German Bedd, Luxembourgish Bett, Vilamovian bet, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål bed, Faroese and Icelandic beð, beður, Norwegian Nynorsk bed, bedd, Swedish bädd, Gothic 𐌱𐌰𐌳𐌹 (badi), all meaning “bed”.
further possible etymology and cognates
The Proto-Germanic term may in turn be from Proto-Indo-European *bʰedʰ- (“to dig”) with various theories explaining the development in meaning. If it is, the term is also cognate with Ancient Greek βοθυρος (bothuros, “pit”), Latin fossa (“ditch”), Latvian bedre (“hole”), Welsh bedd (“grave”), Breton bez (“grave”); and probably also Russian бодать (bodatʹ, “to butt, gore”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"At length, one night, when the company by ſome accident broke up much ſooner than ordinary, ſo that the candles were not half burnt out, ſhe was not able to reſiſt the temptation, but reſolved to have them ſome way or other. Accordingly, as ſoon as the hurry was over, and the ſervants, as ſhe thought, all gone to ſleep, ſhe ſtole out of her bed, and went down ſtairs, naked to her ſhift as ſhe was, with a deſign to ſteal them[…]."
— 1762, Charles Johnstone, The Reverie; or, A Flight to the Paradise of Fools, volume 2, Dublin: Printed by Dillon Chamberlaine, →OCLC, page 202:
"I am quite sure that too much bed, if not too much sleep, is prejudicial, though a certain amount is absolutely necessary."
— 1903, Thomas Stretch Dowse, Lectures on Massage and Electricity in the Treatment of Disease, page 276:
"Some prisoners, indeed, are always up before the bell rings — such was my practice — they prefer to grope about in the dark to tossing about in the utter weariness of too much bed."
— 1907, Jabez Spencer Balfour, My Prison Life, page 181:
"This condition is one of the dangers of “too much bed”. The nurse should inspect the legs of each patient daily"
— 1972, James Verney Cable, Principles of Medicine: An Integrated Textbook for Nurses:
"George, the eldest son of his second bed."
— 1702–1704, Edward [Hyde, 1st] Earl of Clarendon, (please specify |book=I to XVI), in The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, Begun in the Year 1641. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed at the [Sheldonian] Theater: