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Couple vs Match - What's the difference?

couple | match | Related terms |

Couple is a related term of match.


As a verb couple

is .

As a noun match is

match.

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

    match

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) macche, from (etyl)

    Noun

    (es)
  • (sports) A competitive sporting event such as a boxing meet, a baseball game, or a cricket match.
  • My local team are playing in a match against their arch-rivals today.
  • Any contest or trial of strength or skill, or to determine superiority.
  • * Drayton
  • many a warlike match
  • * Dryden
  • A solemn match was made; he lost the prize.
  • Someone with a measure of an attribute equaling or exceeding the object of comparison.
  • He knew he had met his match .
  • * Addison
  • Government makes an innocent man, though of the lowest rank, a match for the mightiest of his fellow subjects.
  • A marriage.
  • A candidate for matrimony; one to be gained in marriage.
  • * Clarendon
  • She was looked upon as the richest match of the West.
  • Suitability.
  • Equivalence; a state of correspondence. (rfex)
  • Equality of conditions in contest or competition.
  • * Shakespeare
  • It were no match , your nail against his horn.
  • A pair of items or entities with mutually suitable characteristics.
  • The carpet and curtains are a match .
  • An agreement or compact.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Thy hand upon that match .
  • * Boyle
  • Love doth seldom suffer itself to be confined by other matches than those of its own making.
  • (metalworking) A perforated board, block of plaster, hardened sand, etc., in which a pattern is partly embedded when a mould is made, for giving shape to the surfaces of separation between the parts of the mould.
  • Derived terms
    * cage match * first class match * friendly match * grudge match * * love match * Man of the Match/man of the match * match fixing * match made in heaven * match made in hell * matchless * matchmaker * match play/matchplay * matchplayer * match point * match referee * * one-day match * overmatch * post-match * rubber match * shouting match * slanging match * steel cage match * Test match * tour match * whole shitting match * whole shooting match

    Verb

    (es)
  • (lb) To agree, to be equal, to correspond to.
  • :
  • :
  • (lb) To agree, to be equal, to correspond to.
  • :
  • *
  • *:There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1927, author= F. E. Penny
  • , chapter=4, title= Pulling the Strings , passage=Soon after the arrival of Mrs. Campbell, dinner was announced by Abboye. He came into the drawing room resplendent in his gold-and-white turban. […] His cummerbund matched the turban in gold lines.}}
  • (lb) To make a successful match or pairing.
  • :
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838, page=71, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= End of the peer show , passage=Finance is seldom romantic. But the idea of peer-to-peer lending comes close. This is an industry that brings together individual savers and lenders on online platforms. Those that want to borrow are matched with those that want to lend.}}
  • (lb) To equal or exceed in achievement.
  • :
  • (lb) To unite in marriage, to mate.
  • *1599 , (William Shakespeare), (Much Ado About Nothing) , :
  • *:Adam's sons are my brethren; and truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.
  • *(Joseph Addison) (1672-1719)
  • *:A senator of Rome survived, / Would not have matched his daughter with a king.
  • To fit together, or make suitable for fitting together; specifically, to furnish with a tongue and groove at the edges.
  • :
  • Derived terms
    * match drill * matcher * matchup * matchy * * overmatch * unmatch
    See also
    * mate

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl)

    Noun

    (es)
  • Device made of wood or paper, at the tip coated with chemicals that ignite with the friction of being dragged (struck) against a rough dry surface.
  • He struck a match and lit his cigarette.
    Synonyms
    * spunk
    Derived terms
    * fireplace match * matchbook, matchbox, matchlock * matchgirl * phosphorus match * quick match * safety match * slow match * strike-anywhere match * sulfur match * sulphur match
    See also
    * fire, lighter, cigarette lighter * strike (to strike a match)