1 [sing.+sing./pl.v.] ~ (of sth) two people or things:
I saw a couple of men get out.
HELPNOTE In BrE a plural verb is usually used in all 3 senses.
2 [sing.+sing./pl.v.] ~ (of sth) a small number of people or things
SYNAFEW:
a couple of minutes * We went there a couple of years ago. * I've seen her a couple of times before. * I'll be with you in a minute. There are a couple of things I have to do first. * There are a couple more files to read first. * We can do it in the next couple of weeks. * The last couple of years have been difficult.
3 [C+sing./pl.v.] two people who are seen together, especially if they are married or in a romantic or sexual relationship:
married couples * a young / an elderly couple * Several couples were on the dance floor. * The couple was / were married in 1976.
IDIOMS see SHAKEn.
a couple pronoun:
Do you need any more glasses? I've got a couple I can lend you.
couple determiner (AmE):
It's only a couple blocks away.
Part of speech: verb
1 [VN] [usuallypassive] ~ A (to B)
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for couple is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is couple a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, couple is tagged as noun.
Does couple appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — couple appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
