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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
couple
I.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a married couple
▪ Most of their friends are married couples.
childless couple/woman/marriage
▪ It was a happy but childless marriage.
the happy couple (=a couple that have just got married or will soon get married)
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
childless
▪ The threshold for childless couples under pensionable age was 57 percent above income support levels.
▪ Like many childless couples, Bobbie and Philip Bernisch wanted a baby.
▪ When the embryo was found to be male the Mastertons gave it away to a childless couple.
▪ Maria Park had even talked the childless presidential couple into adopting her older son.
▪ It was on the outskirts of the village and belonged to an elderly, childless couple.
▪ Inpart it was a response to the needs of childless white couples for whom white infants were no longer available for adoption.
▪ It has all the latest technology to help childless couples, but not enough first-class semen.
▪ I think in vitro fertilisation is wonderful for childless couples, but I could never consider that option for us.
elderly
▪ As she opened the gate, some people came out of the front door - an elderly couple with Susan behind them.
▪ In 1952, the family rented an 800-square-foot, two-bedroom apartment that the elderly couple still call home.
▪ An elderly couple were leaning over their garden gate.
▪ An elderly couple is silently eating chicken and mashed potatoes at a table by the window.
▪ The only photograph was of an elderly couple on top of the television, grey-haired and sporting smiles of false teeth.
▪ The other man to die was Brian Roberson, 36, who stabbed to death an elderly couple in 1986.
▪ Still the elderly couple, a Mr and Mrs Stevenson, stayed with me.
▪ The clients included secretaries, elderly couples, marketing managers.
happy
▪ As the happy couple took their places there was a stir and a rising babble behind them.
▪ The happy couple warring in public, being at odds over what really was the truth.
▪ They walk, like a happy couple.
▪ Now the happy couple plan a new ceremony to bless their marriage.
▪ Friends and relatives are expected to give paper money to the happy couple after traditional ceremonies, writes Gurbir Dhillon.
▪ In Anne and Tim, she will be longing for at least one happy couple within the Royal Family.
▪ The dancing had stopped momentarily, and a space had been cleared round the happy couple.
▪ Even the happiest of couples need some space between them.
married
▪ We gaze across the breakfast things like an old married couple, and I remove a smear of marmalade from the tablecloth.
▪ One of the implications of this is that married couples will be together for longer.
▪ The proportion of out-of-wedlock births has increased so much mainly because the number of births to married couples has sharply declined.
▪ Their life was going to be different from those of the married couples around them, he had promised himself.
▪ Your tour started with only three married couples, did it not?
▪ Voluntary childlessness Perhaps 5 percent of married couples choose to be childless.
▪ All married couples, provided they live together, are entitled to claim.
▪ By 1988, married couples with children made up no more than 26 percent of all households in Britain.
young
▪ It is a happy but open ending, as the young couple, like most others, face an uncertain future.
▪ And there was this terrific young couple, Herb, deep in lust and love.
▪ With a young couple aboard it?
▪ None the less the young couple eventually married, which in the face of so much Glover resistance undoubtedly took some strength and resolve.
▪ Time allowed 00:18 Read in studio Eight young couples are living in new homes thanks to a village's own housing scheme.
▪ Right away I get flagged by a young couple standing next to a building with bars on the doors and windows.
▪ A young couple, they had been out touring; she was driving and in charge.
▪ We finally found a young couple and they got as far as the front door.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
in a couple of shakes/two shakes
same-sex couple/relationship etc
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ A young couple were walking hand in hand along the beach.
▪ An elderly couple live next door.
▪ An elderly couple was sitting on the park bench.
▪ It's increasingly common for unmarried couples to live together.
▪ Shirley and Bob are a young married couple with two small children.
▪ the couple who live next door to me
▪ The house was bought by a young married couple.
▪ They're a nice couple, aren't they?
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ An entrepreneurial couple we talked to had always wanted to run a bed-and-breakfast.
▪ And I've seen Fred a couple of times in the last few years.
▪ By making breaking up harder to do, supporters believe that couples will focus more on staying together.
▪ He intends to invite some of these couples and top fertility clinic experts to appear before his panel.
▪ However, away from the cameras and microphones, the couple argued continually.
▪ It was a couple of hours before I could get back to Eleanor Darcy.
▪ Most bankruptcies involve couples who jointly file a petition to have their debts wiped out.
▪ The couple fell in love before they had even set eyes on each other during a six-month long distance courtship.
II.verb
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Efficiency is improved by coupling large numbers of boxcars together.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And Feinstein had voted for an earlier version when it was coupled with a minimum wage increase.
▪ But after three relatively small grape harvests in a row coupled with continuing strong consumer demand, grape prices continue to increase.
▪ This meant, I assumed, that men coupled on the premises.
▪ This must be coupled with the creation of an attractive environment, through the transformation of derelict sites.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Couple

Couple \Cou"ple\, v. i. To come together as male and female; to copulate. [Obs.]
--Milton. Bacon.

Couple

Couple \Cou"ple\ (k[u^]p"'l), n. [F. couple, fr. L. copula a bond, band; co- + apere, aptum, to join. See Art, a., and cf. Copula.]

  1. That which joins or links two things together; a bond or tie; a coupler. [Obs.]

    It is in some sort with friends as it is with dogs in couples; they should be of the same size and humor.
    --L'Estrange.

    I'll go in couples with her.
    --Shak.

  2. Two of the same kind connected or considered together; a pair; a brace. ``A couple of shepherds.''
    --Sir P. Sidney. ``A couple of drops''
    --Addison. ``A couple of miles.''
    --Dickens. ``A couple of weeks.''
    --Carlyle.

    Adding one to one we have the complex idea of a couple.
    --Locke.

    [Ziba] met him with a couple of asses saddled.
    --2 Sam. xvi. 1.

  3. A male and female associated together; esp., a man and woman who are married or betrothed.

    Such were our couple, man and wife.
    --Lloyd.

    Fair couple linked in happy, nuptial league.
    --Milton.

  4. (Arch.) See Couple-close.

  5. (Elec.) One of the pairs of plates of two metals which compose a voltaic battery; -- called a voltaic couple or galvanic couple.

  6. (Mech.) Two rotations, movements, etc., which are equal in amount but opposite in direction, and acting along parallel lines or around parallel axes.

    Note: The effect of a couple of forces is to produce a rotation. A couple of rotations is equivalent to a motion of translation.

Couple

Couple \Cou"ple\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Coupled (k[u^]p"'ld); p. pr. & vb. n. Coupling (k[u^]p"l[i^]ng).] [F. coupler, fr. L. copulare. See Couple, n., and cf. Copulate, Cobble, v.]

  1. To link or tie, as one thing to another; to connect or fasten together; to join.

    Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds, . . . And couple Clowder with the deep-mouthed brach.
    --Shak.

  2. To join in wedlock; to marry. [Colloq.]

    A parson who couples all our beggars.
    --Swift.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
couple

c.1200, from Old French copler, from cople (see couple (n.)). Related: Coupled; coupling.

couple

late 13c., from Old French cople "married couple, lovers" (12c., Modern French couple), from Latin copula "tie, connection," from PIE *ko-ap-, from *ko(m)- "together" + *ap- "to take, reach." Meaning broadened mid-14c. to "any two things."

Wiktionary
couple

det. (context informal English) A small number of. n. 1 Two partners in a romantic or sexual relationship. 2 Two of the same kind connected or considered together. 3 (label en informal) A small number. vb. 1 (context transitive English) To join (two things) together, or (one thing) to (another). 2 (context transitive dated English) To join in wedlock; to marry. 3 (context intransitive English) To join in sexual intercourse; to copulate.

WordNet
couple
  1. v. 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]

  2. link together; "can we couple these proposals?" [syn: couple on, couple up] [ant: uncouple]

  3. form a pair or pairs; "The two old friends paired off" [syn: pair, pair off, partner off]

  4. make love; "Birds mate in the Spring" [syn: copulate, mate, pair]

couple
  1. n. a small indefinite number; "he's coming for a couple of days"

  2. a pair of people who live together; "a married couple from Chicago" [syn: mates, match]

  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

Wikipedia
Couple

Couple or couples may refer to:

Couple (mechanics)

In mechanics, a couple is a system of forces with a resultant (a.k.a. net or sum) moment but no resultant force. A better term is force couple or pure moment. Its effect is to create rotation without translation, or more generally without any acceleration of the centre of mass. In rigid body mechanics, force couples are free vectors, meaning their effects on a body are independent of the point of application.

The resultant moment of a couple is called a torque. This is not to be confused with the term torque as it is used in physics, where it is merely a synonym of moment. Instead, torque is a special case of moment. Torque has special properties that moment does not have, in particular the property of being independent of reference point, as described below.

Couple (app)

Couple, formerly Pair, is a mobile app which provides a mobile messaging service for two people, especially romantic couples. Like many mobile phone messaging applications, Couple allows users to share text, photos, video and other content. It's a competitor to apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and KakaoTalk, but it's unique in that it is for communicating with exactly one other person. Couple is one of a slew of mobile applications that intentionally confine their communication to a small group, as opposed to large public or semi-public networks like Twitter.

The app is currently available on iPhone and Android. The free application garnered more than 100,000 users after only a week. TenthBit, the company producing Couple, is part of the Y Combinator startup incubator.

On February 2, 2013, TenthBit announced that it had acquired rival U.K. app Cupple and changed the name of the merged app from Pair to Couple.

Usage examples of "couple".

He had consumed a couple of ounces by the time I had him properly secured and his palm thoroughly swabbed with raw alcohol, and was looking significantly more relaxed than he had upon entering the room.

Lionel Brown had fractured his left leg in at least two places, broken his left wrist, and probably crushed a couple of ribs.

A short, silent black man was stoking the fire, while a couple of the teenagers rifled the packs for food.

Townsend was kicking the bejesus out of a hastily built fire, thwarting the attempts of a couple of young men to rebuild it.

The humped mound of the lodge was reflected in still water, and on the far bank she could see the agitated judderings of a couple of willow saplings, evidently in the process of being consumed.

It had occurred to Jamie a couple of days before, in the vague way that one recognizes a fact unconsciously known for some time, that Tom Christie was in love with his wife.

Jamie had forced me to take almost all the moneynot a great deal, but there was a small weight of coin at the bottom of each of the pockets tied around my waist, and a couple of proclamation notes tucked inside my stays.

I slid off the bed and shook my shoes, dislodging a small roach and a couple of silverfish who had taken shelter in the toes.

He had been at his work all day and saw little of value to show for it, save a headache behind his eyes and some not very expert surveillance on the part of a couple of presumably bored Khagggun.

Heading for one, he lost a couple of seconds, everything went dark, and he momentarily lost his bearings.

They were moving at eight thousand meters per second, just a couple of thousand meters above the ground.

He fiddled with his feeder, and munched slowly on a couple of fruit bars.

The owner of the post office gave him directions to a couple of bed-and-breakfast homes.

Maybe that accounted for the offal: a couple of osprechs were hobbled near the creek, just upstream of the house.

They were standing a couple of hundred feet above the level of the Tiefer depot.