couché

Borrowed from French couché, past participle of coucher (“to lay, to lay down”). Doublet of couchant and collocate.

couché (not comparable)

1. (heraldry) Inclined at an angle.
   • 1866, The Herald and Genealogist, page 77:

     Azure, semé of tratti or billets couché or, two lions passant in pale of the same.

   • 1881, Robert Riddle Stodart, Scottish Arms: Being a Collection of Armorial Bearings, A.D. 1370-1678, Reproduced in Fascimile from Contemporary Manuscripts, page 11:

     3rd, to sinister—on a shield couché a lion rampant within a bordure charged with eight roses, behind the shield a pastoral staff in pale, for Bishop Columba de Dunbar, being his arms and "baculum pastorale." […] Sir David Dunbar of Cockburn, said to be a son or grandson of George, tenth Earl. Seal, 12th December 1452,—on a shield couché, a lion rampant within a bordure charged with eight roses or stars; […]

   • 1896, John Woodward, A Treatise on Heraldry, British and Foreign: With English and French Glossaries, page 114:

     Argent, semé of billets couches azure, a lion rampant gules, crowned or, Lordship of GEROLDSECK.

   • 1909, James Balfour Paul, The Scots Peerage: Founded on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland; Containing an Historical and Genealogical Account of the Nobility of that Kingdom, page 519:

     Andrew, Lord Avandale, bore on his seal a shield couché quartered : 1st , a lion rampant within a royal tressure  […]

   • 1916, Francis Pierrepont Barnard, The Casting-counter and the Counting-board: A Chapter in the History of Numismatics and Early Arithmetic, page 123:

     A heater - shield of Savoy (Gules, a cross argent) couché, with helm, mantling, and crest of a lion's head between two wings;

2. (heraldry, of a chevron) Couched: issuing from the side of the shield rather than the bottom or top.
   • 1896, John Woodward, A Treatise on Heraldry, British and Foreign: With English and French Glossaries, page 148:

     Gules, a chevron couché (or issuant from the dexter flank) argent, is the coat of MARSCHALCK. (Plate VII., fig. 5.) Gules , a chevron reversed argent, is the coat of the Bavarian Barons RUMLINGEN DE BERG; and of […]

   A chevron couché is one which emerges from one side of the escutcheon and has its apex on the opposite side, or at the fess point.

• “couché”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

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couché (feminine couchée, masculine plural couchés, feminine plural couchées)

1. past participle of coucher

couché (plural couchés)

1. in bed
2. lying

• développé couché

• “couché”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From French coucher (“to sleep”), compare Haitian Creole kouche.

couché

1. to sleep

• Alcée Fortier, Louisiana Folktales