"couple up" meaning in English

See couple up in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: couples up [present, singular, third-person], coupling up [participle, present], coupled up [participle, past], coupled up [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} couple up (third-person singular simple present couples up, present participle coupling up, simple past and past participle coupled up)
  1. (transitive) To put into a couple; to put into, or connect together as, a group of two. Tags: transitive Related terms: pair up, pal up
    Sense id: en-couple_up-en-verb-vsk7hX1B Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English phrasal verbs with particle (up) Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 55 45 Disambiguation of English phrasal verbs with particle (up): 47 53
  2. (intransitive) To get into pairs; to become a group of two. Tags: intransitive
    Sense id: en-couple_up-en-verb-Ew5riowC Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English phrasal verbs with particle (up) Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 55 45 Disambiguation of English phrasal verbs with particle (up): 47 53

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for couple up meaning in English (2.4kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "couples up",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "coupling up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "coupled up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "coupled up",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "couple up (third-person singular simple present couples up, present participle coupling up, simple past and past participle coupled up)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "55 45",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "47 53",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasal verbs with particle (up)",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1892, Congressional Serial Set, page 492",
          "text": "It is utterly impossible for any factory in the United States to couple up 8,000 feet of hose within ten hours unless they had thirty or forty men on and have the couplings made, […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To put into a couple; to put into, or connect together as, a group of two."
      ],
      "id": "en-couple_up-en-verb-vsk7hX1B",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive) To put into a couple; to put into, or connect together as, a group of two."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "word": "pair up"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "word": "pal up"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "transitive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "55 45",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "47 53",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasal verbs with particle (up)",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1999 March 20, Natalie Angiers, The Guardian",
          "text": "By contrast, lesbians are sexually sedate. They don’t cruise sex clubs. They couple up and stay coupled, and they like cuddling and hugging more than they do serious, genitally-based sex.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "text": "For this next challenge, you'll need to couple up with someone."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To get into pairs; to become a group of two."
      ],
      "id": "en-couple_up-en-verb-Ew5riowC",
      "links": [
        [
          "pairs",
          "pairs"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive) To get into pairs; to become a group of two."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "intransitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "couple up"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English phrasal verbs",
    "English phrasal verbs with particle (up)",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "couples up",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "coupling up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "coupled up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "coupled up",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "couple up (third-person singular simple present couples up, present participle coupling up, simple past and past participle coupled up)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "pair up"
    },
    {
      "word": "pal up"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English transitive verbs",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1892, Congressional Serial Set, page 492",
          "text": "It is utterly impossible for any factory in the United States to couple up 8,000 feet of hose within ten hours unless they had thirty or forty men on and have the couplings made, […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To put into a couple; to put into, or connect together as, a group of two."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive) To put into a couple; to put into, or connect together as, a group of two."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "transitive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English intransitive verbs",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1999 March 20, Natalie Angiers, The Guardian",
          "text": "By contrast, lesbians are sexually sedate. They don’t cruise sex clubs. They couple up and stay coupled, and they like cuddling and hugging more than they do serious, genitally-based sex.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "text": "For this next challenge, you'll need to couple up with someone."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To get into pairs; to become a group of two."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "pairs",
          "pairs"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive) To get into pairs; to become a group of two."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "intransitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "couple up"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.