different between lock vs couple

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /l?k/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /l?k/
• Rhymes: -?k
• Homophone: Locke

Etymology 1

From Middle English lok, from Old English loc, from Proto-West Germanic *lok, from Proto-Germanic *luk?. The verb is from Middle English locken, lokken, louken, from Old English l?can, Proto-West Germanic *l?kan, from Proto-Germanic *l?kan?. Doublet of luxe.

Noun

lock (plural locks)

1. Something used for fastening, which can only be opened with a key or combination.
   • 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

     "Give me the key," said my mother; and though the lock was very stiff, she had turned it and thrown back the lid in a twinkling.
2. (computing, by extension) A mutex or other token restricting access to a resource.
3. A segment of a canal or other waterway enclosed by gates, used for raising and lowering boats between levels.
   • 1846, William Makepeace Thackeray, Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo

     Here the canal came to a check, ending abruptly with a large lock.

4. (firearms) The firing mechanism.
   • 1837, Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

     "I never saw such a gun in my life," replied poor Winkle, looking at the lock, as if that would do any good.

5. Complete control over a situation.
   • 2003, Charley Rosen, The Wizard of Odds

     Even though he had not yet done so, Jack felt he had a lock on the game.

6. Something sure to be a success.
   • 2004, Avery Corman, A perfect divorce

     Brian thinks she's a lock to get a scholarship somewhere.

7. (rugby) A player in the scrum behind the front row, usually the tallest members of the team.
8. A fastening together or interlacing; a closing of one thing upon another; a state of being fixed or immovable.
   • 1834, Thomas de Quincey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (first published in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine)

     Albemarle Street closed by a lock of carriages

9. A place from which egress is prevented, as by a lock.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Dryden to this entry?)

10. A device for keeping a wheel from turning.
11. A grapple in wrestling.

    • They must be also practis'd in all the Locks and Gripes of Wrestling

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

• lock time
• lock, stock and barrel

Descendants

• Tok Pisin: lok
• ? Hawaiian: laka

Translations

Verb

lock (third-person singular simple present locks, present participle locking, simple past locked, past participle locked or (obsolete) locken)

1. (intransitive) To become fastened in place.
2. (transitive) To fasten with a lock.

3. (intransitive) To be capable of becoming fastened in place.

4. (transitive) To intertwine or dovetail.

5. (intransitive, break dancing) To freeze one's body or a part thereof in place.

6. To furnish (a canal) with locks.
7. To raise or lower (a boat) in a lock.
8. To seize (e.g. the sword arm of an antagonist) by turning the left arm around it, to disarm him.
9. (Internet, transitive) To modify (a thread) so that users cannot make new posts in it.
10. (Internet, transitive, Wiktionary and WMF jargon) To prevent a page from being edited by other users.

    Frequently vandalized pages are generally locked to prevent further damage.

Antonyms

• (to fasten with a lock; to be capable of becoming fastened in place): unlock

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English lok, lokke, from Old English locc, from Proto-Germanic *lukkaz, from Proto-Indo-European *lugnó-, from Proto-Indo-European *lewg- (“to bend”).

Cognate with Old Norse lokkr (whence Danish lok), German Locke. It has been theorised that the word may be related to the Gothic verb *???????????????????? (*lukan, “to shut”) in its ancient meaning "to curb".

Noun

lock (plural locks)

2. A tuft or length of hair, wool etc.
   • If I consent to burn them, will you promise faithfully neither to send nor receive a letter again, nor a book (for I perceive you have sent him books), nor locks of hair, nor rings, nor playthings?

3. A small quantity of straw etc.
4. (Scotland, law, historical) A quantity of meal, the perquisite of a mill-servant.

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

• KLOC, Kloc

German

Pronunciation

Verb

lock

1. singular imperative of locken
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of locken

Swedish

Etymology

From Old Norse lok, lokkr, from Proto-Germanic *lukkaz.

Pronunciation

Noun

lock c or n

1. (chiefly in the plural) a lock of hair
2. a cover, a lid
3. popping (as when ears pop)

   Få lock för örat.

   Be deafened.

4. a (thin) board that covers the gap between panel boards
5. call, lure (uninflected, from the verb locka)

   med lock och pock

Declension

Derived terms

• Få lock för örat: be deafened. When you have bad hearing from the change in air pressure due to an air plane flight. So it’s sort of like having a casserole cover in your ear

Related terms

• grytlock
• hårlock

References

• lock in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)

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