1 (AmE also pillow) a fabric bag filled with soft material or feathers that is used, for example, to make a seat more comfortable:
matching curtains and cushions * a floor cushion (= a large cushion that you put on the floor to sit on) * a pile of scatter cushions (= small cushions, often in bright colours, that you put on chairs, etc.) * (figurative) a cushion of moss on a rock
2 a layer of sth between two surfaces that keeps them apart:
A hovercraft rides on a cushion of air. * Underlay forms a cushion between the carpet and the floor, to minimize wear.
3 [usuallysing.] ~ (against sth) something that protects you against sth unpleasant that might happen:
His savings were a comfortable cushion against financial problems. * The team built up a safe cushion of two goals in the first half.
4 (in the game of BILLIARDS, etc.) the soft inside edge along each side of the table, that the balls bounce off
verb [VN]
1 to soften the effect of a fall or hit:
My fall was cushioned by the deep snow.
2 ~ sb/sth (against / from sth) to protect sb/sth from harm or the unpleasant effects of sth:
The south of the country has been cushioned from the worst effects of the recession. * He broke the news of my brother's death to me, making no effort to cushion the blow (= make the news less shocking).
3 [usuallypassive] to make sth soft with a cushion
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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 cushion is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is cushion a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, cushion is tagged as noun.
Does cushion appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — cushion 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.