Monday, January 12, 2015

word of the day: couchette

The word of the day is couchette:
 
1. a sleeping berth in a passenger compartment that can be collapsed to form a benchlike seat for daytime use.
2. a compartment containing such berths.
French; see couch, -ette (dictionary.com)


"'I swear, I caught only a glimpse of her face in a train compartment full of cigar smokers, and she was wearing huge fox fur gloves and an amorphous hooded garment that obscured her swiveling profile,' said the sniveling guttersnipe who'd been stealing passports from the couchettes until he was kidnapped into a private investigation."

 - Karen Elizabeth Gordon, Out of the Loud Hound of Darkness: A Dictionarrative

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