Couple vs Link - What's the difference?

In obsolete terms the difference between couple and link

is that couple is that which joins or links two things together; a bond or tie; a coupler while link is a torch, used to light dark streets.

In transitive terms the difference between couple and link

is that couple is to join (two things) together, or (one thing) to (another) while link is to demonstrate a correlation between two things.

As a determiner couple

is a small number of.

As a proper noun Link is

a diminutive=Lincoln given name.

couple

English

Noun

(en noun)

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;

Two of the same kind connected or considered together.

* 1839 , (Charles Dickens), (Nicholas Nickleby)

(label) 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 , , Across Coveted Lands :

When we got on board again after a couple of hours on shore

* , chapter=1

, title= 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.}}

*{{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)

It is in some sort with friends as it is with dogs in couples ; they should be of the same size and humour.

* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)

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, handful

Derived terms

* bridal couple * coupla * couplezilla * couple-close * galvanic couple * voltaic couple

Determiner

(head)

(informal) A small number of.

Verb

(coupl)

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.

(dated) To join in wedlock; to marry.

* (rfdate),

A parson who couples all our beggars.

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 [...]

Derived terms

* coupling (noun) * decouple, decoupled * uncouple

link

English

(link)

Etymology 1

From (etyl) , from (etyl). Used in English since the 14th century.

Noun

(en noun)

A connection between places, people, events, things, or ideas.

The mayor’s assistant serves as the link to the media.

* Cowper

The link of brotherhood, by which / One common Maker bound me to the kind.

* Gascoigne

And so by double links enchained themselves in lover's life.

One element of a chain or other connected series.

The third link of the silver chain needs to be resoldered.

The weakest link .

The link on the page points to the sports scores.

(computing) The connection between buses or systems.

A by-N-link is composed of N lanes.

(mathematics) A space comprising one or more disjoint knots.

(Sussex) a thin wild bank of land splitting two cultivated patches and often linking two hills.

* 2008 , Richard John King, A Handbook for Travellers in Kent and Sussex

They used formerly to live in caves or huts dug into the side of a bank or "link ," and lined with heath or straw.

(figurative) an individual person or element in a

* 2010 , James O. Young, My Sheep Know My Voice: anointed poetry , AuthorHouse, page 32:

But know that God is the strongest link .

* 2010 , William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, Jill Butler, Universal Principles of Design , RockPort, page 262:

The fuse is the weakest link' in the system. As such, the fuse is also the most valuable ' link in the system.

* 2010 , Stephen Fairweather, The Missing Book of Genesis , AuthorHouse, page 219:

. This is so that nobody can change the way every link must talk about the formula that I taught to make a real Chain of Universal Love and not a Chain of Love of a group or sect. ”

Anything doubled and closed like a link of a chain.

a link of horsehair

(Mortimer)

(kinematics) Any one of the several elementary pieces of a mechanism, such as the fixed frame, or a rod, wheel, mass of confined liquid, etc., by which relative motion of other parts is produced and constrained.

(engineering) Any intermediate rod or piece for transmitting force or motion, especially a short connecting rod with a bearing at each end; specifically (in steam engines) the slotted bar, or connecting piece, to the opposite ends of which the eccentric rods are jointed, and by means of which the movement of the valve is varied, in a link motion.

(surveying) The length of one joint of Gunter's chain, being the hundredth part of it, or 7.92 inches, the chain being 66 feet in length.

(chemistry) A bond of affinity, or a unit of valence between atoms; applied to a unit of chemical force or attraction.

Holonyms

* chain

Derived terms

*(connection) cufflink, hyperlink, linkage, link farm, missing link *(element of a chain) sausage link * link-up * chainlink

Verb

(en verb)

To connect two or more things.

* Eustace

All the tribes and nations that composed it [the Roman Empire] were linked together, not only by the same laws and the same government, but by all the facilities of commodious intercourse, and of frequent communication.

(of a Web page) To contain a hyperlink to another page.

My homepage links to my wife's.

(Internet) To supply (somebody) with a hyperlink; to direct by means of a link.

Haven't you seen his Web site? I'll link you to it.

(Internet) To post a hyperlink to.

Stop linking those unfunny comics all the time!

To demonstrate a correlation between two things.

Derived terms

* link up

Etymology 2

Plausibly a modification of .

Noun

(en noun)

(obsolete) A torch, used to light dark streets.

*1854 , Dickens, Hard Times , Chapter 7:

*:You were coming out of the Italian Opera, ma’am, in white satin and jewels, a blaze of splendour, when I hadn’t a penny to buy a link to light you.’

* 1883 , Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

"Give me a loan of the link , Dick."

(Shakespeare)

Derived terms

* linkboy * linkman

Etymology 3

Origin unknown.

Verb

(en verb)

(Scotland) To skip or trip along smartly.

References

Anagrams

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