coupling

Pluralcouplings

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A device that links two parts together so that force or movement passes between them.

   The drive shaft connects to the gearbox through a flexible coupling.

   Engineers inspected each coupling for signs of wear.

   Similarconnector, coupler, joint, link

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The bringing together of two things or people to form a pair.

   Before the yard was automated, the coupling of wagons was slow, dangerous work done by hand.

   The novel explores the coupling of memory and identity.

   Similarpairing, joining, union, combination

   Note

   A plain English formation, Middle English couplynge, built from couple and the -ing that turns verbs into nouns of action. Railway writing keeps it busy alongside its reverse: Trains Illustrated in 1960 counts "the uncoupling and coupling of wagons" among the jobs a modern yard still left to people. As an action noun it takes of before what is joined, as in the coupling of wagons or of ideas.

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of couple.

   Coupling the carriages by hand was once a dangerous job.

   The engineers are coupling the new module to the existing system.

   Note

   A verb form that doubles as a noun. After be it makes the progressive (they are coupling the carriages), and in noun positions it is a gerund (coupling carriages was dangerous). It carries the whole range of the verb: joining things, the dated sense of marrying, copulating, even entering one owner's horses together in a race. Meanings such as the act of joining grew from this gerund.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The degree to which one software module depends on another.

   Loose coupling lets developers update one service without breaking the others.

   The team reduced coupling by hiding each module's internal details.

   Similardependency

   Note

   Software engineers measure how tightly modules lean on each other in degrees: loose coupling, tight coupling. Robert C. Martin's Clean Code (2009) treats the lack of it as a virtue, since isolated parts are easier to understand and to change. Its everyday synonym is dependency. In design talk it is usually set against cohesion, and the goal is low coupling with high cohesion.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   An act of sexual intercourse between two partners.

   The poem describes their coupling in veiled, lyrical language.

   Field biologists recorded the coupling of the pair during the breeding season.

   Similarsex, intercourse, copulation, mating, lovemaking

   Note

   A sexual sense that keeps its distance. Beside blunter words for the act it reads as formal or literary, which suits criticism, poetry and field biology. It is freely countable: Jason Bailey, looking back at Basic Instinct in 2022, writes of "explicit onscreen couplings." The verb behind it, to couple, is used intransitively for mating and transitively for bringing two animals together to breed.

6. 6
   noununcountable

   A connection between two electronic circuits that allows a signal to pass from one to the other.

   Capacitive coupling carried the audio signal between the two stages of the amplifier.

   Poor coupling at the antenna weakened the received signal.

   Similarconnection, link

   Note

   Electronics names each kind by the path the signal takes: capacitive, inductive or direct coupling. A capacitor placed between two stages passes a changing signal while blocking unwanted direct current, which is why capacitive coupling turns up between amplifier stages. Unlike the physicist's general sense, coupling here is something deliberately built into a circuit.

7. 7
   noununcountable

   The property of two physical systems that they interact with and influence each other.

   The coupling between light and matter underlies how lasers work.

   Weak coupling between the spins allowed each one to be measured separately.

   Similarinteraction

   Note

   Physics uses the word at its most general. Any two systems that affect each other are coupled, whether light and matter or neighboring spins. The strength of the interaction is expressed by a coupling constant, so physicists speak of weak and strong coupling and can put a number on the difference.

8. 8
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A link between performing an action and the place where it happens or the method used to perform it.

   Habit research highlights the coupling between an action and the setting in which it is repeated.

   Therapists try to weaken the coupling between smoking and the daily routines that trigger it.

   Similarlink, association, connection, linkage

   Note

   Malcolm Gladwell gives the word its widest reach in Talking to Strangers (2019). He applies it to crime bound tightly to place and remarks that literary theorists, bridge engineers and police chiefs all struggle with coupling, a sign of how freely the idea travels between fields. It usually takes between, as in the coupling between an action and its setting.

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