n.
- Two items of the same kind; a pair.
- Something that joins or connects two things together; a link.
- (used with a sing. or pl. verb)
- Two people united, as by betrothal or marriage.
- Two people together.
- Informal. A few; several: a couple of days.
- Physics. A pair of forces of equal magnitude acting in parallel but opposite directions, capable of causing rotation but not translation.
v., -pled, -pling, -ples. v.tr.
- To link together; connect: coupled her refusal with an explanation.
- To join as spouses; marry.
- To join in sexual union.
- Electricity. To link (two circuits or currents) as by magnetic induction.
- To form pairs; join.
- To unite sexually; copulate.
- To join chemically.
Two or few: "Every couple years the urge strikes, to . . . haul off to a new site" (Garrison Keillor).
[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin cōpula, bond, pair.]
USAGE NOTE When used to refer to two people who function socially as a unit, as in a married couple, the word couple may take either a singular or a plural verb, depending on whether the members are considered individually or collectively: The couple were married last week. Only one couple was left on the dance floor. When a pronoun follows, they and their are more common than it and its: The couple decided to spend their (less commonly its) vacation in Florida. Using a singular verb and a plural pronoun, as in The couple wants their children to go to college, is widely considered to be incorrect. Care should be taken that the verb and pronoun agree in number: The couple want their children to go to college. • Although the phrase a couple of has been well established in English since before the Renaissance, modern critics have sometimes maintained that a couple of is too inexact to be appropriate in formal writing. But the inexactitude of a couple of may serve a useful purpose, suggesting that the writer is indifferent to the precise number of items involved. Thus the sentence She lives only a couple of miles away implies not only that the distance is short but that its exact measure is unimportant. This usage should be considered unobjectionable on all levels of style. • The of in the phrase a couple of is often dropped in speech, but this omission is usually considered a mistake, especially in formal contexts. Three-fourths of the Usage Panel finds the sentence I read a couple books over vacation to be unacceptable; however, another 20% of the Panel finds the sentence to be acceptable in informal speech and writing.
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