couples

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of couple.

   Many couples spend their first anniversary at the place they met.

   The retreat welcomes engaged couples for weekend counseling sessions.

   Note

   The plural reaches well beyond romance. Most often it counts partners, as in couples at a retreat or couples on an anniversary. Physicists, however, speak of couples as forces that produce a turning effect, and the old voltaic battery was built from paired plates of two metals called galvanic couples. In technical writing, read the word as pairs of forces or metals, not people.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of couple.

   The yard crew couples the freight cars before each departure.

   Her essay couples sharp analysis with a warm, personal tone.

   Note

   Most often it joins one thing to another, and it favors the pattern 'couples X with Y': an essay couples analysis with warmth. Racing has its own use, in which an owner's horses are coupled so a single bet covers any of them winning. The meaning 'marries' is now dated. Without an object, the verb means to mate, so let context decide which reading is meant.

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