couch a hogshead
English
Verb
couch a hogshead (third-person singular simple present couches a hogshead, present participle couching a hogshead, simple past and past participle couched a hogshead)
- (obsolete, UK, thieves' cant) To lie down to sleep.
- 1566, Harman, Thomas, A Caveat or Warning for Common Cursitors, T. Bensley, published 1814, page 66:
- I couched a hogshead in a Skypper this darkemans.
- 1611, Middleton, Thomas, “The Roaring Girl”, in Bullen, Arthur Henry, editor, The Works of Thomas Middleton, volume 4, published 1885, Act 5, Scene 1, pages 128–129:
- Ben mort, shall you and I heave a bough, mill a ken, or nip a bung, and then we'll couch a hogshead under the ruffmans, and there you shall wap with me, and I'll niggle with you.
- 1992, Morgan, Cynthia, Court of Shadows:
- Mayhap we have been in the same bousing ken or stalling ken at some time. Mayhap we have couched a hogshead at the same house in Southwark.
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Synonyms
- See Thesaurus:go to bed
References
- [Francis Grose] (1788), “Couch a hogshead”, in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 2nd edition, London: […] S. Hooper, […], OCLC 1179630700.
- Albert Barrère and Charles G[odfrey] Leland, compilers and editors (1889–1890), “Couch a hogshead, to”, in A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant […], volume I (A–K), Edinburgh: […] The Ballantyne Press, OCLC 882571771, page 274.
- Farmer, John Stephen (1893) Slang and Its Analogues, volume 3, page 329