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bed

Pronunciation: /bɛd/

The English word “bed” has 20 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A piece of furniture, usually flat and soft, on which to rest or sleep.
  2. A mattress.
  3. A bedframe.
  4. A prepared spot in which to spend the night.
  5. One's place of sleep or rest.
  6. Sleep; rest; getting to sleep.
  7. The time for going to sleep or resting in bed; bedtime.
  8. The equipment, staffing, etc., required for a patient in a medical institution.
  9. Time spent in a bed.
  10. Marriage.
  11. Sexual activity.
  12. A place, or flat surface or layer, on which something else rests or is laid.
  13. The bottom of a body of water, such as an ocean, sea, lake, or river.
  14. An area where a large number of oysters, mussels, other sessile shellfish, or a large amount of seaweed is found.
  15. A garden plot.
  16. A foundation or supporting surface formed of a fluid.
  17. The superficial earthwork, or ballast, of a railroad.
  18. The platform of a truck, trailer, wagon, railcar, or other vehicle that supports the load to be hauled.
  19. A shaped piece of timber to hold a cask clear of a ship’s floor; a pallet.
  20. The flat part of the press, on which the form is laid.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English bed, bedde, from Old English bedd, from Proto-West Germanic *badi, from Proto-Germanic *badją (“resting-place, plot of ground”). Cognates Cognate with Scots bed, North Frisian baad, beed, Bēr, Saterland Frisian Bääd, West Frisian bêd, Cimbrian pett, Dutch bed, Dutch Low Saxon bedde, German Bett, Bette, German Low German Bedd, Luxembourgish Bett, Vilamovian bet,…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.