Comprise vs Couple - What's the difference?
comprise | couple |
To be made up of; to consist of (especially a comprehensive list of parts).
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However, the passive voice of comprise must be employed carefully to make sense. Phrases such as "animals and cages are comprised by zoos" or "pitchers, catchers, and fielders are comprised by baseball teams" highlight the difficulty.
*{{quote-news, year=2011, date=December 10, author=David Ornstein, work=BBC Sport
, title= To include, contain or embrace.
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To compose, to constitute. See usage note below.
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*1657 , (Isaac Barrow), (translation), Prop. XXX
*:"Seeing then the angles comprised of equal right lines are equal, we have found the angle FDE equal to the angle ABC."
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*:Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with (by way of local colour) on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like withered elfin limbs.
(lb) To include, contain, or be made up of ("open-ended", doesn't limit to the items listed; cf. compose , which is "closed" and limits to the items listed)
Two partners in a romantic or sexual relationship.
* 1729 , (Jonathan Swift), (A Modest Proposal)
Two of the same kind connected or considered together.
* 1839 , (Charles Dickens), (Nicholas Nickleby)
(label) A small number.
* 1839 , (Charles Dickens), (Nicholas Nickleby)
* 1891 , (Arthur Conan Doyle), (The Adventure of the Red-Headed League)
* 1902 , ,
* , chapter=1
, title= *{{quote-book, year=1959, author=(Georgette Heyer), title=(The Unknown Ajax), chapter=1
, passage=And no use for anyone to tell Charles that this was because the Family was in mourning for Mr Granville Darracott […]: Charles might only have been second footman at Darracott Place for a couple of months when that disaster occurred, but no one could gammon him into thinking that my lord cared a spangle for his heir.}}
One of the pairs of plates of two metals which compose a voltaic battery, called a voltaic couple or galvanic couple.
(label) 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.
(label) A couple-close.
(label) That which joins or links two things together; a bond or tie; a coupler.
* (w, Roger L'Estrange) (1616-1704)
* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
(informal) A small number of.
To join (two things) together, or (one thing) to (another).
(dated) To join in wedlock; to marry.
* (rfdate),
To join in sexual intercourse; to copulate.
* 1987 Alan Norman Bold & Robert Giddings, Who was really who in fiction, Longman
* 2001 John Fisher & Geoff Garvey, The rough guide to Crete, p405
As verbs the difference between comprise and couple
is that comprise is to be made up of; to consist of (especially a comprehensive list of parts) while couple is .comprise
English
Verb
(compris)However, the passive voice of comprise must be employed carefully to make sense. Phrases such as "animals and cages are comprised by zoos" or "pitchers, catchers, and fielders are comprised by baseball teams" highlight the difficulty.
Arsenal 1-0 Everton, passage=Arsenal were playing without a recognised full-back - their defence comprising four centre-halves - and the lack of width was hindering their progress.}}
Usage notes
* Traditionally, a team comprised its members, whereas the members composed'' the team. (The ''Associated Press Stylebook'' advises journalists to maintain this distinction.) The sense "compose, constitute" — as in "the members comprise the team" — is sometimes considered incorrect. According to '' also state that it is an increasingly frequent and accepted usage. * The use of "of" with the verb in the active (rather than passive) tense is always incorrect, hence *"the UK comprises of four countries" and *"four countries comprise of the UK" are incorrect.External links
* * English words affected by confusion English words affected by prescriptivism ----couple
English
Noun
(en noun)- I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders;
- A couple of billiard balls, all mud and dirt, two battered hats, a champagne bottle
- ‘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.’
Across Coveted Lands:
- When we got on board again after a couple of hours on shore
Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’ […].” So I started to back away again into the bushes. But I hadn't backed more'n a couple of yards when I see something so amazing that I couldn't help scooching down behind the bayberries and looking at it.}}
- It is in some sort with friends as it is with dogs in couples ; they should be of the same size and humour.
- I'll go in couples with her.
Usage notes
* The traditional and still most broadly accepted usage of be used only as a noun and not as a determiner in formal writing. * "A couple of things" or people may be used to mean two of them, but it is also often used to mean any small number. *: 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 [=two friends]. *: Wait a couple of minutes [=two minutes or more].Synonyms
* (two partners) * (two things of the same kind) brace, pair * (a small number of) few, handfulDerived terms
* bridal couple * coupla * couplezilla * couple-close * galvanic couple * voltaic coupleDeterminer
(head)Verb
(coupl)- Now the conductor will couple the train cars.
- I've coupled our system to theirs.
- A parson who couples all our beggars.
- On their wedding night they coupled nine times.
- 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 [...]