pillowed

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of pillow.

   She pillowed her cheek against the cool window as the train rolled on.

   His head was pillowed on a bundle of clothes when they found him asleep.

   Note

   Pillow is transitive here, so the form needs something being rested: she pillowed her cheek against the window. In the passive it usually takes on, and the support need not be a pillow at all. A head can be pillowed on a bundle of clothes, an arm or a coat. One regular -ed spelling serves as both the past tense and the past participle.

2. 2
   adjective

   Furnished or cushioned with a pillow or pillows.

   The deeply pillowed sofa made it hard to get up once you sat down.

   After the X-ray, the nurse helped him lean back against the pillowed headboard of the hospital bed.

   Similarcushioned, padded

   Note

   It almost always sits directly before a piece of furniture: a pillowed chair, a pillowed couch, a pillowed bed rest. The word is simply pillow plus -ed. William Winwood Reade uses it in 1860, and Kathryn Ma's The Chinese Groove (2023) still does. Keep it apart from the verb's past form. A pillowed chair has pillows on it, while a head pillowed on an arm is resting there.

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