different between couple vs secure

English

Alternative forms

• copel (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English couple, from Old French couple, from Latin c?pula. Doublet of copula.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?p?l/
• Rhymes: -?p?l

Noun

couple (plural couples)

1. Two partners in a romantic or sexual relationship.
   • 1729, Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal

     I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; […]

2. Two of the same kind connected or considered together.

   A couple fewer people show up every week.

   • 1839, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

     […] couple of tables; one of which bore some preparations for supper; while, on the other […]

3. (informal) A small number.
   • 1839, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

     A couple of billiard balls, all mud and dirt, two battered hats, a champagne bottle […]

   • 1891, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Red-Headed League

     ‘Oh, merely a couple of hundred a year, but the work is slight, and it need not interfere very much with one’s other occupations.’

   • 1902, A. Henry Savage Landor, Across Coveted Lands:

     When we got on board again after a couple of hours on shore […]
4. One of the pairs of plates of two metals which compose a voltaic battery, called a voltaic couple or galvanic couple.
5. (physics) 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.
6. (architecture) A couple-close.
7. (obsolete) That which joins or links two things together; a bond or tie; a coupler.

   • I’ll keep my stables where
     I lodge my wife; I’ll go in couples with her;

Usage notes

• A traditional and still broadly accepted usage of couple is as a noun followed by "of" to mean "two", as in "a couple of people". In this usage, "a couple of" is equivalent to "a pair of".

• The very widespread use of the same expression (e.g. "a couple of people") to mean any small number is often considered informal but is in fact very old and often considered unobjectionable on all levels of style, sometimes even contradictorily by the same publication that labels this use as informal elsewhere on the same page, e.g. the American Heritage Dictionary.

  The farm is a couple of miles off the main highway [= a few miles away].

  We’re going out to a restaurant with a couple of friends [= a few friends].

  Wait a couple of minutes [= a few minutes].

• Couple or a couple is also used informally and formally as an adjective or determiner (see definition below) to mean "a few", in which case it is not followed by "of". Many usage manuals advise against this widespread use although the Merriam-Webster Dictionary points out that this use before a word indicating degree is standard in both US and UK English (e.g. "a couple more examples" or "a couple less problems"). Only its use before an ordinary plural noun is an Americanism, which the dictionary explains is "common in speech and in writing that is not meant to be formal or elevated". This use is especially frequent with numbers, time, and other measurements, such as "a couple hundred", "a couple minutes", and "a couple dozen".

Synonyms

• (two partners):
• (two things of the same kind): brace, pair; see also Thesaurus:duo
• (a small number of): few, handful

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

couple (not comparable)

1. (informal, US) Two or (a) small number of.

Determiner

couple

1. (colloquial, US) Two or a few, a small number of.

Verb

couple (third-person singular simple present couples, present participle coupling, simple past and past participle coupled)

1. (transitive) To join (two things) together, or (one thing) to (another).

   Now the conductor will couple the train cars.

   I've coupled our system to theirs.

2. (transitive, dated) To join in wedlock; to marry.
3. (intransitive) To join in sexual intercourse; to copulate.
   • 1987 Alan Norman Bold & Robert Giddings, Who was really who in fiction, Longman

     On their wedding night they coupled nine times.

   • 2001 John Fisher & Geoff Garvey, The rough guide to Crete, p405

     She had the brilliant inventor and craftsman Daedalus construct her an artificial cow, in which she hid and induced the bull to couple with her [...]

Synonyms

• (to join together): affix, attach, put together; see also Thesaurus:join
• (to join in wedlock): bewed, espouse; see also Thesaurus:marry
• (to join in sexual intercourse): have sex, make love; see also Thesaurus:copulate

Derived terms

• coupling (noun)
• coupling rod (a rod that couples)
• decouple, decoupled
• uncouple

Translations

References

Anagrams

• culpeo

French

Etymology

From Old French couple, from Vulgar Latin *c?pla, from Latin c?pula. Doublet of copule.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kupl/

Noun

couple m (plural couples)

1. two partners in a romantic or sexual relationship

2. (physics) a force couple; a pure moment
3. (mathematics) an ordered pair

Noun

couple f (plural couples)

1. (animal husbandry) An accessory used to tightly attach two animals next to each other by the neck.
2. (regional) a pair of something.
3. (Canada) a couple of something, not to be mistaken as a few.

Related terms

• couplage
• coupler

Further reading

• “couple” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• copule, copulé

Middle English

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Old French couple, from Latin c?pula.

Alternative forms

• cuple, copull, cupple, cople, coupull, cowpulle, copill, cupil

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?kup?l/, /?kupl?/, /?ku?p?l/

Noun

couple (plural couples or couple)

1. A couple; two people joined by a marital union or matrimony.
2. A pair of animals of opposing genders (in a breeding context)
3. A group of two things or animals, a pair (never three or more as in modern English)
4. A lead or tie linked to two dogs and used to restrain them.
5. A measurement for fruits, especially when dried.
6. (architecture) One of two opposing roof beams (or the two as a pair)
7. (rare) Sexual intercourse; the act of sex.

Derived terms

• couplen
• couplyng

Descendants

• English: couple
• Scots: couple, kipple

References

• “c?uple, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-11-06.

Etymology 2

Verb

couple

1. Alternative form of couplen

Old French

Alternative forms

• cople
• cuple

Etymology

From Vulgar Latin *copla, from Latin c?pula.

Noun

couple f (oblique plural couples, nominative singular couple, nominative plural couples)

1. couple (two things)
2. sexual liaison

Usage notes

• Occasionally used as a masculine noun (le couple)

Descendants

English

Alternative forms

• secuer (obsolete)

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin securus (“of persons, free from care, quiet, easy; in a bad sense, careless, reckless; of things, tranquil, also free from danger, safe, secure”), from se- (“without”) + cura (“care”); see cure. Doublet of sure and the now obsolete or dialectal sicker (“certain, safe”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /s??kj??(?)/, /s??kj??(?)/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /s??kj??/, /s??kj?/, /s??kj??/
• Rhymes: -??(?)
• Hyphenation: se?cure

Adjective

secure (comparative securer or more secure, superlative securest or most secure)

1. Free from attack or danger; protected.
2. Free from the danger of theft; safe.
3. Free from the risk of eavesdropping, interception or discovery; secret.
4. Free from anxiety or doubt; unafraid.

   • But thou, secure of soul, unbent with woes.

5. Firm and not likely to fail; stable.
6. Free from the risk of financial loss; reliable.
7. Confident in opinion; not entertaining, or not having reason to entertain, doubt; certain; sure; commonly used with of.
8. (obsolete) Overconfident; incautious; careless.
9. Certain to be achieved or gained; assured.

Antonyms

• insecure

Hyponyms

Derived terms

• securely

Related terms

• security

Translations

Verb

secure (third-person singular simple present secures, present participle securing, simple past and past participle secured)

1. To make safe; to relieve from apprehensions of, or exposure to, danger; to guard; to protect.

   • I spread a cloud before the victor's sight, / Sustained the vanquished, and secured his flight.

2. To put beyond hazard of losing or of not receiving; to make certain; to assure; frequently with against or from, or formerly with of.

   to secure a creditor against loss; to secure a debt by a mortgage

   • 1831, Thomas Dick, The Philosophy of Religion

     It secures its possessor of eternal happiness.

3. To make fast; to close or confine effectually; to render incapable of getting loose or escaping.

   to secure a prisoner; to secure a door, or the hatches of a ship

4. To get possession of; to make oneself secure of; to acquire certainly.

   to secure an estate

   • 2014, Jamie Jackson, "Ángel di María says Manchester United were the ‘only club’ after Real", The Guardian, 26 August 2014:

     With the Argentinian secured United will step up their attempt to sign a midfielder and, possibly, a defender in the closing days of the transfer window. Juventus’s Arturo Vidal, Milan’s Nigel de Jong and Ajax’s Daley Blind, who is also a left-sided defensive player, are potential targets.
5. (transitive, obsolete) To plight or pledge.

Derived terms

• securement

Translations

Further reading

• secure in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• secure in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• Creuse, Rescue, cereus, ceruse, cursee, recuse, rescue, secuer

Italian

Adjective

secure

1. feminine plural of securo

Latin

Etymology 1

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /se?ku?.re/, [s???ku???]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /se?ku.re/, [s??ku???]

Noun

sec?re

1. ablative singular of sec?ris

Etymology 2

securus +? -?

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /se??ku?.re?/, [s?e??ku??e?]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /se?ku.re/, [s??ku???]

Adverb

s?c?r? (comparative s?c?rius, superlative s?c?rissim?)

1. carelessly
2. fearlessly
3. quietly

References

• secure in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• secure in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• secure in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette

Romanian

Alternative forms

• s?cure (archaic)

Etymology

From Latin sec?ris, sec?rem. Compare Italian scure.

Noun

secure f (plural securi)

1. axe, hatchet
2. battle axe, halberd

Declension

Synonyms

• topor