From Middle English couple, from Old French couple, from Latin cōpula.

• IPA: /ˈkʌpəl/

couple (plural couples)

1. Two of the same kind connected or considered together.

   A couple of police officers appeared at the door.

   • 1839, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby:

     […] couple of tables; one of which bore some preparations for supper; while, on the other […]

2. Two partners in a romantic or sexual relationship.
   • 1729, [Jonathan Swift], A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to Their Parents, or the Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick, Dublin: […] S[arah] Harding, […], →OCLC ↗, page 5 ↗:

     The number of Souls in the Kingdom being uſually reckon'd one Million and a half, Of theſe I calculate there may be about tvvo hundred thouſand Couple vvhoſe VVives are Breeders, from vvhich Number I Subſtract thirty Thouſand Couples, vvho are able to maintain their ovvn Children, […]

3. (informal) A small number.

   Synonyms: a few#Determiner, several#Determiner, various#Determiner

   Coordinate term: handful

   • 1838 March – 1839 October, Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1839, →OCLC ↗:

     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 […]

   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC ↗:

     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.

4. One of the pairs of plates of two metals which compose a voltaic battery, called a voltaic couple or galvanic couple.
5. (physics) A turning effect created by forces that produce a non-zero external torque.
6. (architecture) A couple-close.
7. That which joins or links two things together; a bond or tie; a coupler.
   • c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act II, (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)]:

     I’ll keep my stables where / I lodge my wife; I’ll go in couples with her;

• (two partners) twosome
• (two things of the same kind) brace, pair; see also Thesaurus:duo
• (a small number of) few, handful

• French: couple, paire, époux (a couple formed of a husband and wife)
• German: Paar
• Italian: coppia
• Portuguese: casal
• Russian: па́ра
• Spanish: pareja

• French: paire
• German: Paar
• Italian: coppia, paio
• Portuguese: dupla, par
• Russian: па́ра
• Spanish: par

• French: quelques, deux ou trois...
• German: einige, ein paar
• Italian: paio
• Portuguese: poucos, alguns
• Russian: па́ра
• Spanish: un par de, unos

• Russian: по́люс

• French: couple
• Spanish: par de fuerzas

couple (not comparable)

1. (informal, US, Canada) Two or (a) small number of.

1. (colloquial, US, Canada) Two or a few, a small number of.

   A couple fewer people show up every week.

   I'll be there in a couple minutes.

couple (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.
   • 2001, John Fisher, Geoff Garvey, The rough guide to Crete,, page 405:

     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 [...]

4. (transitive) To cause (two animals) to copulate, to bring (two animals) together for mating.

• (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

• French: coupler
• Italian: agganciare, accoppiare
• Portuguese: acoplar
• Spanish: acoplar