couple

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[edit] English

[edit] Etymology

From Old French cople, from Latin copula

[edit] Pronunciation

[edit] Noun

couple (plural couples)

  1. Two partners in a romantic or sexual relationship.
    • 1729, Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal
      I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders;
  2. Two of the same kind connected or considered together (see Usage notes).
    • 1839, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby
      couple of tables; one of which bore some preparations for supper; while, on the other …
  3. (informal) A small number of. See usage notes.
    • 1839, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby
      A couple of billiard balls, all mud and dirt, two battered hats, a champagne bottle …
    • 1891, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Red-Headed League
      ‘Oh, merely a couple of hundred a year, but the work is slight, and it need not interfere very much with one’s other occupations.’
    • 1902, A. Henry Savage Landor, Across Coveted Lands
      When we got on board again after a couple of hours on shore …
  4. One of the pairs of plates of two metals which compose a voltaic battery, called a voltaic couple or galvanic couple.
  5. (physics) Two forces that are equal in magnitude but opposite in direction (and acting along parallel lines), thus creating the turning effect of a torque or moment.

[edit] Usage notes

  • Couple is traditionally considered to be a noun, not an adjective, so it is followed by of when used to mean "two," as in "a couple of people." In colloquial American usage of is often omitted, as in "I went there a couple times," but all standard usage manuals still advise the use of "of."
  • "A couple of things" or people may be used to mean two of them, but it is also often used to mean any small number.
    The farm is a couple of miles off the main highway [=a few miles away].
    We’re going out to a restaurant with a couple of friends [=two friends].
    Wait a couple of minutes [=two minutes or more].

[edit] Synonyms

[edit] Derived terms

[edit] Translations

two partners
two of the same kind considered together
a small number of
one of the pair of plates in a voltaic battery
two rotations, movements, etc., equal in amount but opposite in direction
  • Japanese: 偶力(ぐうりょく,gūryoku)

[edit] Verb

couple (third-person singular simple present couples, present participle coupling, simple past and past participle coupled)

  1. (transitive) To join (two things) together, or (one thing) to (another).
    Now the conductor will couple the train cars.
    I've coupled our system to theirs.
  2. (transitive, dated) To join in wedlock; to marry.
  3. (intransitive) To join in sexual intercourse; to copulate.
    • 1987 Alan Norman Bold & Robert Giddings, Who was really who in fiction, Longman
      On their wedding night they coupled nine times.
    • 2001 John Fisher & Geoff Garvey, The rough guide to Crete, p405
      She had the brilliant inventor and craftsman Daedalus construct her an artificial cow, in which she hid and induced the bull to couple with her [...]

[edit] Derived terms

[edit] Translations

to join together

[edit] French

[edit] Etymology

From Old French cople, from Latin copula.

[edit] Pronunciation

[edit] Noun

couple m. and f. (plural couples)

  1. (m.) Two partners in a romantic or sexual relationship.
    Jean et Amélie forment un joli couple. - Jean and Amélie make a cute couple.
  2. (physics, m.)A force couple; a pure moment.
  3. (mathematics, m.) An ordered pair.
  4. (animal husbandry, f.) An accessory used to tightly attach two animals next to each other by the neck.
  5. (regional, f.) A pair of something.
  6. (Canada, f.) A couple of something, not to be mistaken as a few.

[edit] Related terms

[edit] Anagrams

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