couplement (kuplment)

[ Building on Washington street, Boston. Joy may you have, and gentle hearts content Of your loves couplement . Spenser , Prothalamion. 2. A pair. Anon two female forms before our view Came side by side, a beauteous couplement . [Rare in both uses.] upler (kup'ler), n. wife; unite in matrimony. Swift . A parson who couples all our beggars. 3. In organ - playing , to connect by means of a coupler, as two keys or keyboards. See cou pler (a). II. in trans. copulate. 1. To embrace, as the sexes; .. Thou with thy lusty crew Cast wanton eyes on the daughters of men, And coupled with them and begot a race. Milton , P. R., ii. 181. IMG:content-1467.png:[blocks in formation] No couple - beggar in the land E'er join'd such numbers hand in hand. Swift. In another Dublin newspaper of 1744 [Faulkener's Journal, Oct. 6th and 9th] we read, "This last term a notorious couple beggar was excommunicated in the Consistory Court by the Vicar-General of this diocese on account of his persisting in this scandalous trade, which he had taken up to the undoing of many good families. He was so keen at this mischievous sport of marrying all people that came in his way, that he has been known to refuse three times a higher fee not to solemnise a clandestine marriage than he was to receive or did re IMG:content-1468.jpg:[blocks in formation] Next, with their boy, a decent couple came, And call'd him Robert, 'twas his father's name. Crabbe, Parish Register. A couple , fair As ever painter painted. Tennyson, Aylmer's Field. (b) A pair of forces, equal, parallel, and acting in opposite directions: the they tend to make the body acted upon rotate. [A term introduced in French by Poinsot in 1804.] The three forces, of which one is the resultant of the equal and parallel forces acting at a point, and the other two constitute a couple of which the moment is the same as the resulting moment, with reference to the point, fully represent any system of forces in their tendency to produce rotation and translation. Peirce , Anal. Mechanics (1855), p. 41. (c) In elect ., a pair of metallic plates in contact, used as a source of an electrical current, as in one of the cells of a voltaic battery (a voltaic couple), or in a thermo-electric battery (a thermo-electric couple). See electricity and thermo electricity. A couple consists of the whole of the bodies which exist between two zincs-that is to say, zinc, copper, water, them. Also written couple - clo . Coupled Columns, 12th century. - Cathedral of Monreale, Sicily. Southey . One who or that which couples, joins, or unites. Specifically - ( a ) In organ building , a mechanical contrivance by which the keys of one keyboard are so connected with corresponding keys of another that when the former are depre ed the latter are also depre ed, and thus both can be played by a single motion. Manual couplers connect manual keyboards with each other; pedal couplers connect the pedal keyboard to a manual. Unison couplers connect keys of the same pitch; octave couplers (sometimes loosely called super-octave or sub - octave ) connect keys an octave apart. Octave couplers are sometimes arranged between the keys of a single keyboard, so that it may be coupled with itself. Couplers operate in only one direction; that is, the second keyboard may be coupled with the first, but not the reverse. Also copula . (b) A ring which slides upon the handles of a nipping tool of any kind to maintain its grip upon the work. (c) Same as coupling , 4 (b).