Couch

Couch - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

(Gen. 49:4; 1 Chr. 5:1; Job 7:13; Ps. 6:6, etc.), a seat for repose or rest. (See [130]BED.)

Couch - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

COUCH, v.i.

1. To lie down, as on a bed or place of repose.

2. To lie down on the knees; to stop and recline on the knees, as a beast.

Fierce tigers couched around.

3. To lie down in secret or in ambush; to lie close and concealed.

The earl of Angus couched in a furrow.

Judah couched as a lion. Gen 44.

4. To lie; to lie in a bed or stratum.

Blessed of the Lord be his land-for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath. Deu 33.

5. To stoop; to bend the body or back; to lower in reverence, or to bend under labor, pain, or a burden.

Issachar is a strong ass, couching down between two burdens. Gen 44.

These couchings, and these lowly courtesies.

COUCH, v.t.

1. To lay down; to repose on a bed or place of rest.

Where unbruised youth, with unstuffed brain, doth couch his limbs.

2. To lay down; to spread on a bed or floor; as, to couch malt.

3. To lay close, or in a stratum.

The waters couch themselves, as close as may be, to the center of the globe.

4. To hide; to lay close, or in another body.

It is in use at this day, to couch vessels in walls, to gather the wind from the top, and pass it down in spouts into rooms.

5. To include secretly; to hide; or to express in obscure terms, that imply what is to be understood; with under.

All this, and more, lies couched under this allegory.

Hence,

6. To involve; to include; to comprise; to comprehend or express.

This great argument for a future state, which St. Paul hath couched int he words read.

7. To lie close.

8. To fix a spear in the rest, in the posture of attack.

They couched their spears.

9. To depress the condensed crystaline humor or film that overspreads the pupil of the eye. To remove a catarct, by entering a needle through the coats of the eye, and pushing the lens to the bottom of the vitreous humor, and then downwards and outwards, so as to leave it in the under and outside of the eye. The true phrase is, to couch a cataract; but we say, to couch they eye, or the patient.

COUCH, n.

1. A bed; a place for rest or sleep.

2. A seat of repose; a place for rest and ease, on which it is common to lie down undressed.

3. A layer of stratum; as a couch of malt.

4. In painting, a lay or impression of color, in oil or water, covering the canvas, wall, or other matter to be painted.

5. Any lay, or impression, used to make a thing firm or consistent, or to screen it from the weather.

6. A covering of gold or silver leaf, laid on any substance to be gilded or silvered.

kouch (substantive.).

See BED.

Couch (verb): rabhats, "to crouch," "lurk," as a beast in readiness to spring on its prey. "If thou doest not well, sin coucheth at the door" (Ge 4:7, the King James Version "lieth"), waiting for it to open. Cain is warned to beware of the first temptations to evil, in his case especially a sullen and jealous disposition (compare Dante, Inferno, I, 30). See ABEL; CAIN. The tribe of Judah is compared for its bravery to a recumbent lion or lioness (Ge 49:9; compare Nu 24:9 f); and Issachar to "a strong ass, couching down between the sheepfolds" (Ge 49:14, the King James Version "between two burdens"; compare Jud 5:16). "The deep that coucheth beneath" (De 33:13), probably the springs of water, or possibly, as Driver suggests, "the subterranean deep, pictured as a gigantic monster."

See ABYSS.

M. O. Evans