Dictionary Definition
couple
Noun
1 a small indefinite number; "he's coming for a
couple of days"
3 a pair who associate with one another; "the
engaged couple"; "an inseparable twosome" [syn: twosome, duo, duet]
4 two items of the same kind [syn: pair, twosome, twain, brace, span, yoke, couplet, distich, duo, duet, dyad, duad]
5 something joined by two equal and opposite
forces that act along parallel lines
Verb
1 bring two objects, ideas, or people together;
"This fact is coupled to the other one"; "Matchmaker, can you match
my daughter with a nice young man?"; "The student was paired with a
partner for collaboration on the project" [syn: match, mate, pair, twin]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Pronunciation
-
- Rhymes: -ʌpəl
Noun
- Two partners in a romantic or sexual relationship.
- Joe and Amy make a nice couple.
- Two of the same kind connected or considered together (see
Usage notes).
- They look like a couple of idiots!
- A small number of (see Usage notes) Informal.
- Let me have a couple of slices of pepperoni.
- One of the pairs of plates of two metals which compose a voltaic battery, called a voltaic couple or galvanic couple.
- 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.
Usage notes
- In U.K. usage, couple is followed by of when used to mean "two", as in "a couple of people". In US usage, of is often omitted, as in "I went there a couple times".
- In the U.S., "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 latter usage is disputed.
- The farm is a couple of miles off the main highway [=a few miles away].
- In the U.K., "a couple of" almost always means just two
- We’re going out to a restaurant with a couple of friends [=two friends].
Synonyms
Translations
two partners
- Catalan: parella
- Chinese:
- Dutch: koppel , paar , duo
- Esperanto: paro, duo
- Finnish: pari, pariskunta
- French: couple , paire , epoux m|p (a couple formed of a husband and wife)
- German: Paar
- Hebrew: זוג
- Ido: duo, paro
- Italian: coppia
- Japanese: カップル (kappuru)
- Portuguese: casal
- Russian: пара , чета (for married couples)
- Scottish Gaelic: dithis m|f, càraid
- Slovene: par
- Spanish: pareja
- Swedish: ett par
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
Verb
- To join two things
together.
- Now the conductor will couple the train cars.
Translations
to join two things together
Derived terms
French
Noun
couple- Two partners in a romantic or sexual relationship.
- Jean et Amélie forment un joli couple.
Extensive Definition
Couple () may refer to:
- Two or (in informal usage) more items of a type
- Two members of an intimate relationship
- Couple (mechanics), a system of forces with a resultant moment but no resultant force
- Thermocouple, a type of temperature sensor
See also
couple in French: Couple
couple in Hebrew: זוגיות
couple in Japanese: カップル
couple in Russian: Пара
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
a few, accouple, accumulate, affiliate, agglutinate, ally, amass, apply, arrange a match, articulate, assemble, associate, ball, band, band together, be in cahoots,
be intimate, be made one, be spliced, become one, bind, bond, both, brace, bracket, bridge, bridge over, bunch, bunch up, cabal, cement, cement a union, centralize, chain, clap together, clot, club, club together, cluster, coalesce, cohabit, collect, combine, come together, commit
adultery, comprise,
concatenate,
confederate,
conglobulate,
congregate, conjoin, conjugate, connect, consociate, conspire, contract matrimony,
converge, copulate, correlate, couple up, couplet, cover, crowd, date, diddle, distich, double harness,
double-harness, double-team, doublet, draw a parallel,
duad, duet, duo, dyad, embrace, encompass, equate, espouse, federalize, federate, flock together, flow
together, forgather,
fornicate, frig, fuse, gang, gang around, gang up,
gather, gather around,
get hitched, give away, glue, go in partners, go in
partnership, group,
harness, have sex, have
sexual relations, herd together, hitch, hive, hook up, hook up with,
horde, huddle, identify, include, intermarry, interrelate, interwed, join, join forces, join fortunes
with, join together, join up with, join with, knot, lay, lay together, league, lie with, link, look-alikes, lump together,
make a match, make it with, make love, make one, make out, marry, marshal, mass, match, matching pair, mate, mates, meet, merge, mill, miscegenate, mobilize, mount, muster, nuptial, one or two, organize, pair, pair off, parallel, parallelize, partner, piece together, put
together, rally, rally
around, relate, relativize, remarry, rendezvous, rewed, roll into one, screw, seethe, serve, service, set, set of two, several, sleep with, solder, span, splice, stand together, stand up
with, stick together, stream, surge, swarm, take in, take to wife,
tape, team, team up, team up with, team
with, the two, throng,
throw in with, tie, tie in
with, tie up with, twain,
twins, two, twosome, unify, unionize, unite, unite in marriage, unite
with, wed, weld, wive, yoke