couch a hogshead

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English

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Verb

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couch a hogshead (third-person singular simple present couches a hogshead, present participle couching a hogshead, simple past and past participle couched a hogshead)

  1. (obsolete, UK, thieves' cant) To lie down to sleep.
    • 1566, Thomas Harman, A Caveat or Warning for Common Cursitors[1], T. Bensley, published 1814, page 66:
      I couched a hogshead in a Skypper this darkemans.
    • 1611, Thomas Middleton, “The Roaring Girl”, in Arthur Henry Bullen, editor, The Works of Thomas Middleton[2], volume 4, published 1885, act 5, scene 1, pages 128–129:
      Ben mort, shall you and I heave a bough, mill a ken, or nip a bung, and then we'll couch a hogshead under the ruffmans, and there you shall wap with me, and I'll niggle with you.
    • 1992, Cynthia Morgan, Court of Shadows:
      Mayhap we have been in the same bousing ken or stalling ken at some time. Mayhap we have couched a hogshead at the same house in Southwark.

Synonyms

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References

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