Couch Meaning
/ˈkaʊ̯t͡ʃ/Definition, CEFR level A2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounAn item of furniture, often upholstered, for the comfortable seating of more than one person; a sofa.
nounA bed, a resting-place.
Sentence Examples
There is a TV remote control under the couch.
The couch is in the foreground next to the table.
so I was sleeping on my sister's couch.
CEFR Practice Quiz
She curled up on the ____ to read her favorite novel.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
There is a TV remote control under the ____.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English couche, cowche, from Old French couche, from the verb (see below). Doublet of cwtch.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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."
— 2009, Nancy Bishop, Secrets from the Casting Couch: On Camera Strategies for Actors from a Casting Director, London: Methuen Drama, A & C Black, →ISBN:
"[…] 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."
— 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:
"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."
— 2014, Jennifer Mathieu, The Truth About Alice: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Roaring Brook Press, →ISBN:
"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?"
— 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:
"[A]pproach thy grave / Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch / About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."
— c. 1811 or 1816, William Cullen Bryant, “The Fragment [later renamed Thanatopsis]”, in North American Review, Boston, Mass.: O. Everett, published September 1817, →OCLC:
Explore More A2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
She curled up on the ____ to read her favorite novel.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
There is a TV remote control under the ____.