Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A piece of furniture for reclining and sleeping, typically consisting of a flat, rectangular frame and a mattress resting on springs.
- noun A bedstead.
- noun A mattress.
- noun A place where one may sleep; lodging.
- noun Accommodations for a single person at a hospital or institution.
- noun A time at which one goes to sleep.
- noun A place for lovemaking.
- noun A marital relationship with its rights and intimacies.
- noun A small plot of cultivated or planted land.
- noun An underwater or intertidal area in which a particular organism is established in large numbers.
- noun The ground surface below a body of water such as a sea, lake, or stream.
- noun A supporting, underlying, or securing part, especially.
- noun A layer of food surmounted by another kind of food.
- noun A foundation of crushed rock or a similar substance for a road or railroad; a roadbed.
- noun A layer of mortar upon which stones or bricks are laid.
- noun Printing The heavy table of a printing press in which the type form is placed.
- noun The part of a truck, trailer, or freight car designed to carry loads.
- noun A broad mass of rock or sediment bounded by different material.
- noun A deposit, as of ore, parallel to local stratification.
- noun A heap of material.
- intransitive verb To furnish with a bed or sleeping quarters.
- intransitive verb To put or send to bed.
- intransitive verb To have sexual relations with.
- intransitive verb To plant in a prepared plot of soil.
- intransitive verb To lay flat or arrange in layers.
- intransitive verb To embed.
- intransitive verb To establish; base.
- intransitive verb To go to bed.
- intransitive verb Geology To form layers or strata.
- idiom Slang (get into bed with) To become closely involved with another person or group, as in an intrigue.
- idiom (go to bed with) To have sexual relations with.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The curved piece of wood which forms the main section of the platform carriage-part of a vehicle.
- To place in or as in a bed.
- To go to bed with; make partaker of one's bed.
- To provide a bed for; furnish with accommodations for sleeping.
- To put to bed; specifically, to put (a couple) to bed together, as was formerly the custom at weddings.
- To make a bed of, or plant in beds, as a mass of flowering plants or foliage-plants; also, to transplant into a bed or beds, as from pots or a hothouse: often with out.
- To embed; fix or set in a permanent position; furnish with a bed: as, to
bed a stone. - To lay in a stratum; stratify; lay in order or fiat.
- To make a bed for, as a horse: commonly used with down.
- To go to bed; retire to sleep: by extension applied to animals.
- To cohabit; use the same bed; sleep together.
- To rest as in or on a bed: with on.
- To flock closely together, as wild fowl on the surface of the water.
- To sleep; pass the night, as game in cover.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word bed.
Examples
-
I disappeared inside my head in this bed where our children were sculpted here, where they first slept, in this bed~ where we feasted yes oh yes all this and more happened in this magnificently simple bed of hardwood and cool
wendchymes Diary Entry wendchymes 2007
-
I miss this bed when I die lie me here in this bed~ where I died a thousand times before where I saw stars and danced and stretched and writhed and sang and swore and called out to a god oh yes ... this bed where
wendchymes Diary Entry wendchymes 2007
-
I found the slips of paper which represented, for example, "doll," "is," "on," "bed" and placed each name on its object; then I put my doll on the bed with the words _is_, _on_, _bed_ arranged beside the doll, thus making a sentence of the words, and at the same time carrying out the idea of the sentence with the things themselves.
Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) Authors and Journalists Various 1918
-
_To bed, to bed_ was the burden of it to be played with accompanable concent upon the virginals.
Ulysses James Joyce 1911
-
He turned over in his own bed, _his bed_, and smelt the sweet breath of the honeysuckle coming in at the window, heard the thrushes singing their evening song up the street.
The City of Fire Grace Livingston Hill 1906
-
I would post something coherent about wider society's contempt of fandom because it's play engaged in by adults (I think it was The Joy Of Sex which said bed was the only time grownups get to play), the relationship between fan fiction (play) and writing for publication (work), the contempt of each age group for the next younger group, and the hierarchies of literary snobbery in my head, but frankly I'm too knackered. *goes back to bed*
-
# posted by Maree : June 16, 2007 3:06 AM love the pink/green bed + double chair i'd remove the "sail" from the bed+ paint the walls
Retro Kids' rooms 2007
-
"Well, Miss," said Matilda, not over half re-assured by the words of her mistress -- "it may be nothing, as you say; but, for my part, I never go to bed a single night in the year, without first _looking under the bed_ to see that nobody is hid away there.
Venus in Boston; A Romance of City Life George Thompson
-
The term 'bed blocker' tends to imply the patient is the cause of the problem, but Dr Donald emphasised that was not the case.
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph Stephen Adams 2011
-
Wow, does that mean that being Canadian, in bed, is just plain rude?
Bonnie Fuller: Why Duke University's Karen Owen Is the Sexual Oversharer of All Time! And Good Luck Getting a Job! Bonnie Fuller 2010
oroboros commented on the word bed
A classic case of a word resembling what it says.
July 21, 2007
amcd56 commented on the word bed
I never noticed that before.
July 21, 2007
kalvin commented on the word bed
hey, thanks! totally does.
July 24, 2007
artbizness commented on the word bed
See you all tomorrow.
September 19, 2008
rolig commented on the word bed
In Slovene slang, this means "bad".
May 4, 2009