sofa

Pluralsofas

Formssofas, sofaing, sofaed

1. 1
   nouncountable

   An upholstered seat with a raised back and one or two raised ends, long enough to seat two or more people comfortably.

   They sank into the soft sofa after a long day at work.

   Three guests squeezed onto the sofa to watch the movie.

   Similarcouch, settee, divan, lounge

   Note

   This is the movable heir to the carpeted floor platform. It keeps the long, cushioned seat of the Arabic original but lifts it off the floor and gives it a back and arms. Couch, settee, divan and lounge all name much the same seat. The usual preposition is on: in Norman Lindsay's Redheap (1930), a woman's feline pose on the sofa holds a man's eye.

2. 2
   nounarchaicEastMiddle

   A platform built up from the floor of a room or hall, usually laid with carpet, where people sit.

   Visitors removed their shoes before stepping up onto the carpeted sofa to sit.

   The hall's raised sofa ran the length of one wall, its carpet worn from years of use.

   Note

   Here the word names part of a Middle Eastern room rather than something placed in it. It also stays closest to its source: Arabic ṣuffa, a long seat of stone or brick spread with rich carpets and cushions, which reached English through French. This use is archaic, and it belongs in descriptions of historical interiors, where the seating platform is built into the floor itself.

3. 3
   nounhistoricalcountable

   An enslaved soldier serving in the army of the medieval Mali Empire.

   Thousands of sofas formed the backbone of the empire's infantry.

   A sofa owed his service to the ruler who commanded him.

   Note

   Despite the spelling, this is a separate word from the furniture, with its own history. It belongs to historical writing on West Africa, and the term outlived the Mali Empire. Magbaily C. Fyle's Historical Dictionary of Sierra Leone (2006) calls the soldiers of the Mandinka empire builder Samori Turay sofas and records that they conquered northern Sierra Leone in 1884. The plural is sofas, the same as for the couch.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To furnish a room or space with one or more sofas for seating.

   The designer chose to sofa the lobby with deep leather pieces.

   They sofaed the entire reception area in matching gray fabric.

   Similarfurnish

   Note

   The verb lives mostly in its participle, sofaed, and usually in a row with other furnishing words. Stanley Lane-Poole's Life of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe (1890) describes a House of Representatives "stoved, carpeted, desked, and sofaed." David A. Kaufelt in 1981 writes of a suite "fully draped, fully sofaed." Sofaed round means lined with sofas along the walls. The endings attach directly to the noun: sofaed, sofaing.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To place or settle a person in a seated or lying position on a sofa.

   The nurse sofaed the patient gently and propped a pillow behind him.

   They decided to sofa the exhausted hiker until he regained his strength.

   Similarsettle, seat, lay

   Note

   Here a person, not a room, gets sofaed, and the word often carries a hint of being laid up. Benjamin Disraeli, writing in 1880 after "a terrible ten days," reports himself "dressed and sofaed in my writing room": he is well enough to leave his bed but not much more. The participle looks identical to the furnishing verb, so context decides. A sofaed room is furnished; a sofaed person is resting.

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