couchant

English

Etymology

From Middle English couchant, from Middle French couchant.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkaʊtʃənt/

Adjective

couchant (not comparable)

1. (of an animal) Lying with belly down and front legs extended; crouching.
   • 1801, Robert Southey, “(please specify the page)”, in Thalaba the Destroyer, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] [F]or T[homas] N[orton] Longman and O. Rees, […], by Biggs and Cottle, […], OCLC 277545047:

     The dogs, with eager yelp,
     Are struggling to be free;
     The hawks in frequent stoop
     Token their haste for flight;
     And couchant on the saddle-bow,
     With tranquil eyes, and talons sheath’d,
     The ounce expects his liberty.

   • 1865, Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod, Chapter I. "The Shipwreck", page 14.

     There were the tawny rocks, like lions couchant, defying the ocean, whose waves incessantly dashed against and scoured them with vast quantities of gravel.

   • 1874, James Thomson, The City of Dreadful Night, XX

     Two figures faced each other, large, austere;

     A couchant sphinx in shadow to the breast,

     An angel standing in the moonlight clear;

   • 1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room, Vintage Classics, paperback edition, page 91

     Or again, have you ever watched fine collie dogs couchant at twenty yards' distance?

2. (heraldry) Represented as crouching with the head raised.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938, book 3, canto 2:

     His crest was covered with a couchant Hownd, / And all his armour seem'd of antique mould [...].

Translations

lying with belly down; crouching

• Russian: лежащий (ru) (ležaščij)

represented as crouching with the head raised

• Swedish: liggande (sv)

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French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ku.ʃɑ̃/

Noun

couchant m (plural couchants)

1. the setting sun
2. the sunset
3. the west
4. (literary) old age, decline, termination

Participle

couchant

1. present participle of coucher

Further reading

• “couchant”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

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Middle English

Alternative forms

• cowchaunte

Etymology

From Middle French couchant, from Old French couchant.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkuːtʃant/

Noun

couchant

1. (rare) Lying down; couchant.
2. (rare) Displaying deference and humility.

Descendants

• English: couchant

References

• “cǒuchant, ppl.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-07-20.

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Middle French

Verb

couchant (feminine singular couchante, masculine plural couchans, feminine plural couchantes)

1. present participle of coucher
2. (may be preceded by en, invariable) gerund of coucher

Adjective

couchant m (feminine singular couchante, masculine plural couchans, feminine plural couchantes)

1. lying down

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Old French

Verb

couchant

1. present participle of couchier

Adjective

couchant m (oblique and nominative feminine singular couchant)

1. lying down