couch potato

WOTD – 23 March 2010    

English

Wikipedia

Etymology

couch + potato; coined by Tom Iacino in 1976 as a pun on "boob tuber" (boob tube = television, tuber = potato); trademarked by Robert Armstrong 1976–91

Noun

couch potato (plural couch potatoes)

1. A person who spends a lot of time sitting or lying down, often watching television, eating snacks or drinking alcohol.

Synonyms

• idler
• layabout
• See also Wikisaurus:idler

Translations

person who spends a lot of time sitting or lying down, often watching television and eating snacks

• Armenian: մեշոկ (hy) (mešok)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 電視迷 (cmn), 电视迷 (cmn) (diànshìmí)

• Czech: pecivál (cs) m
• Finnish: sohvaperuna (fi)
• French: légume (fr), avachi (fr), pantouflard (fr) m

• German: Nichtstuer (de) m
• Norwegian: sofagris (no) m
• Polish: kanapowy leń (pl) m
• Russian: лежебока (ru) (ležebóka) m and f, сидень (ru) (síden') m, лентяй (ru) (lentjáj) m, бездельник (ru) (bezdél'nik) m
• Swedish: soffliggare (sv) c

References

• Allan A. Metcalf, "Predicting New Words: The Secrets of Their Success" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004) ISBN 061813008X pp.129-134.

See also

• lazy