• IPA: /ˈkʌpəl/

couple (plural couples)

1. 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; […]

2. Two of the same kind connected or considered together.
   • 1839, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

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

3. (informal) 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, A. Henry Savage Landor, Across Coveted Lands ↗:

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

4. One of the pairs of plates of two metals which compose a voltaic battery, called a voltaic couple or galvanic couple.
5. (physics) 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.
6. (architecture) A couple-close.
7. (obsolete) That which joins or links two things together; a bond or tie; a coupler.
   • c. 1610–1611, William Shakespeare, “The VVinters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [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)
• (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) Two or (a) small number of.

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

couple (couples, present participle coupling; 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.
   • 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 [...]

• (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