American here, and I can confirm that I've never actually heard someone use settee to refer to a couch. Davenport is rare, but Chesterfield is definitely a new one for me. I used to sleep on a futon couch when I was a kid.
American, my generation doesn't know settee but the older generations do. Growing up if it had room for 3 people it's a couch/sofa, room for 2 a loveseat/Davenport. Mom says a Chesterfield is a sofa but more decorative (the back is higher in the middle than the sides, makes a hump)
American here (mainly southern states), and I've heard a few family members say settee. However, they generally get the same look as when they say vahz instead of vase and pee-cahn instead of pecan. Lol. I also have family near the Canadian border in Maine, and they call it a chesterfield. Never heard Davenport. We also just called it a couch or a love seat depending on size. But, the weird thing is, the cushions on them are sofa cushions, not couch cushions most of the time... Weird.
I have heard the word “Sectional” being used more and more to refer to sofas/couches. While it does at the moment refer to sofas that are modular and able to be separated into “sections”……that style of sofa is becoming so common that for some households/communities, the sectional may actually be the most common phrase used. I think it is a strong candidate to become a universal word for all sofas/couches
Here in the US we have Burger King, Dairy Queen, Tire Kingdom and other store names involving royalty. So how about a furniture store named: Ottoman Empire?
I’m from the southern US and I’ve never heard of the phrase “settee.” I have heard of Chesterfield, but exclusively when referring to that specific type of couch. You hear “sofa” but only when someone is trying to boujee. Couch is by far the most popular name we use around here.
Canadian here and back in the 70's, my grandmother called all couches "Chesterfields". Can't say I've heard the word used much since the late 80's though.
In Germany, a new term has been introduced. If you buy a specific set of sitting furniture pieces, it contains an Einsitzer (actually a regular upholstered seat), a Zweisitzer (two-seated version of the former) and a Dreisitzer (the longest of the three).
We have had similar words in Dutch for _ages._ You'd call these a _tweezitsbank_ (for 2 people) or a _driezitsbank_ (for 3 people). I don't know if we've ever used _eenzitsbank,_ which would have been similar to Einsitzer I guess) as that ia usually just referred to as a chair (you'd use words like _foteuil, zetel, luie stoel_ etc., as just the word _stoel_ can refer to any kind of chair...
We need to make "sofa potato" a thing. From now on, that's what I will say. "Get off your arse and stop being a sofa potato."... Actually, now that I think about it, "Sofa Potato" sounds like something completely different. Like a not-so-pleasant surprise your dog or small child (or drunk uncle) left for you in the cushions.
uncle would get cussed out and be paying for a whole new couch and would never be able to enter my home again that's for sure. I never believed in giving drunk people any kind of pass on jacked up behavior while their intoxicated.
In Minnesota, I'm familiar with couch, sofa, and davenport. Futons and loveseats are as expected. Sofa beds can be called "pull-outs" and chaise lounges can also be called a "chase"
Lounge. I’m Australian and grew up in Queensland. To me “sofa” and "couch" are American terms and "settee" is definitely British. A multi-person upholstered chair is a "lounge". A single-seater is a "lounge chair". And a matching set of them, most commonly a three seater and two single seaters, is a "lounge suite" (pronounced "sweet"). Growing up, my grandparents had a lounge that converted into a bed. The back folded down level with the seat to form a large bed. The seat could also be lifted up to revel a storage compartment which contained sheets and wooden blankets exuding a strong aroma of mothballs. This piece of furniture was referred to as the "day-and-night" and it was located on a fully enclosed verandah called the "sleep-out".
Growing up in Minnesota in the 1960s, I heard my parents and grandparents generation using "Davenport". Its a name I'm completely comfortable with, yet never use myself. I bet my kids would have no idea what it means.
My maternal grandma in northern Illinois always referred to it as "the Davenport". She was also the one that had clear plastic on every sofa in her home. Gotta keep it pristine! :)
Canadian here (Eastern, might change if you go west or north), and I use couch and sofa interchangeably, and have heard chesterfield, but never unironically. Settee is completely new to me, and I've only ever heard "futon" in french, as it is what I've been using for couch in that language for forever. Loveseat is just another word for footrest, chair, or small couch, so accurate still.
Canadian here, from central Ontario. It was called chesterfield or couch when I was growing up. I heard settee somewhere, it brings up an image of an old lady saying that when when I hear it. Sofa is what furniture stores call them, regular people rarely say sofa. Davenport I heard my mother use once, for a couch that the back folds down on.
I live in Australia and I’ve never heard “settee” before. I’m not sure if this is common in Australia as a whole or just where I’m from, but the most common word for them here is “lounge” with some people using couch and sofa. Great video as always!
I've heard all three of lounge, sofa and couch used in Australia. Agree that lounge is most commonly used. In previous houses, we used to call the rooms with lounges that were separated from the dining room the lounge room.
In addition to "couch potato" there is also "couch surfing" As for "chaise longue" this has been very commonly transformed (by spelling errors, misreading, and fake etymology) into "chaise lounge" i.e. a chair you might find in a lounge...
I grew up with those reclining pool furniture (with a slanted backrest, arms on the side, possibly for drinks, and a length considerable enough for the entire body) being referred to regularly as “chaise lounges.”
I live in the southeast US and the majority of people say "couch", with a substantial minority using "sofa" instead. However, all of my Jamaican relatives use the word "settee" to refer to a couch. Older folks tend to only use "settee", while young people and folks who've immigrated to the US & Canada, use couch and settee interchangeably. The only people I know personally that say "sofa" are my Jamaican-British Grandmother and her Irish husband. But they've started saying couch since they retired to Florida.
I've always used the term futon in its original sense - to describe an all-cotton mattress - rather than as a synonym for sofa-bed. A futon is all cotton, a "maton" has two layers of foam with a layer of cotton in between, and a mattress is all foam.
In Dutch, we call a sofa/couch a "bank" or, if we're trying to sound fancy, a "sofa". The word "sofa" in Dutch also has more of a connotation of a fancy type of couch, whereas "bank" refers to all types.
Bank, banc, bench are probably from the same root. In modern French, banc means bench. Canapé means couch. That one-armed affair is called a méridienne.
Living on the west coast USA I have only ever heard "Sofa," "Couch," and "Loveseat". "Sofa" and "Couch" get used interchangeably. Ironically most "Loveseats" could comfortably seat three people. The word is used for anything smaller than a Couch but too wide to be called a chair. Now that I think about it there seems to be some sort of standardization of the width of couch cushions, roughly 1.5 one and half times the width of a typical person's hips. One cushion means a chair, two for a Loveseat, three or more is a couch or sofa.
Many years ago, Saturday Night Live did a sketch about a mattress entrepreneur who ran a successful company named Mattress King with the slogan, "It's not just great, it's Mattress King great!" He ran a commercial telling us he expanded from the bedroom to the living room, and wanted to sell furniture under the name Sofa King, with a slogan similar to Mattress King's.
I've spent my entire 72 years in Northern Ohio and Southern Michigan. "Davenport" was common when I was a child, I don't recall hearing it much, if at all, these days. It's almost universally "couch", with an occasional "sofa" thrown in just to keep from getting complacent. I mainly remember "settee" from a Monty Python sketch. Graham Chapman's character was making fun of a posh, la-di-da kind of person going to sit on the settee. Other than that, it's quite rare but seems to refer to something more like a loveseat but with minimal upholstery and fancy woodwork. I can't recall "divan" ever being used outside of so-called classic movies of the thirties. Or as a certain kind of chicken casserole. "Chesterfield" was a brand of cigarettes. I only learned it had to do with furniture when I read the word in a British book and had to look it up.
I grew up in central Ohio and my mother's older family used davenport for the plain furniture piece, but they had a fancy settee in one of the bedrooms. Now I am in southern Ohio and hear nothing but couch.
I've always called a pull-out sofa bed a "hide-a-bed", but no one I've asked outside of my family says that. That being said, every time I google it the results are exactly what I'm looking for, so maybe it's more common than I think. I think I may have heard of a Chesterfield in conversation before, but primarily I know it from the song "If I Had a Million Dollars" by the Barenaked Ladies.
i’m from the US and i’ve heard people use the term “settee” here, they were older. they might have had some connection to the uk, like a parent being from there, but i’ve definitely heard it used here
I have heard the term "Settee" here in the US, but its been reserved for very fancy, ornate and formal couches (often antiques). And sometimes older people will use the term in place of "love seat". And we use the term "Chaise Longue" but pronounce it "Chase Lounge" (and most Chaise Longues are outdoor furniture for the patio).
I live in Minnesota. I remember my grandmother referring to the sofa as a davenport. Once upon a time I adopted a Shetland Sheepdog name Lord Chesterfield. Chester liked to lounge on the sofa with me while I watched television. This video triggered many fond memories. As a side note, I grew up saying couch. But somewhere in the past I started using sofa more and more often.
we called the full size one Sofa/Couch and the small one that usually matches is called a loveseat a regular size sofa comfortably seats 5 or 6 people while the loveseat usually fits 2 or 3 people and some of the smaller ones have a pull down center panel that has cupholders in it.
In England, a Davenport is a lecturn-type desk named after a militray Captain. US Davenport is a sofa named after the manufacturer (of sofas). 2 separate types of furniture with different etymologies.
I live in the southeastern USA, and I’ve always called it a couch. Mine is technically a loveseat-recliner, but I usually use the generic term “couch” unless I’m specifically describing the type of couch that I have, in which case I say “loveseat-recliner.”
As a Midwesterner, I can confirm that "davenport" is used interchangeably with "couch" and "sofa" in this part of the U.S., though it does seem to be rather an "old lady" word for the object. I've also seen "chesterfield" in Canadian advertising. The only place I've ever encountered "settee" is in the song "William and Rose" by the rock group Heart, which is about an elderly couple and would seem to confirm that the word is dated. The key thing about a "futon" is that it is foldable and portable. It's also very common in America for the letters in chaise longue to be interchanged so that the second word is "lounge" (and pronounced like a the word for a room where one relaxes). While the item shown in this video would be referred to by that name, the word is far more commonly used for plastic beach or deck furniture.
Funnily enough like most of the comments here point out lounge, on top of the room definition, is actually also another separate term for the furniture entirely so that might also explain the change in spelling.
In the house I Grew up in, in the US Midwest, we had a settee in the mud room (unupholstered), a couch in the family parlor (a fainting couch by design), a Davenport or sofa and loveseat in the guest parlor. The house, built in the late 19th century by a politician was ridiculously huge and weird.
I’m from Chesterfield and although I have know them being called chesterfields I haven’t ever heard it locally. I tend to use either settee or sofa and just use them interchangeably.
In the northeast U.S. growing up in the 50s and 60s, the common names I learned for a sofa were couch, sofa, and davenport. The latter seemed to replace the former when my mother bought a complete new set for our living room (BrE lounge). Other names I heard people use were settee (chiefly older generations), chaise *lounge* (note the respelling/mispronunciation), and divan (rare, maybe a touch snobbish?).
In Mexican Spanish the generic name for any couch-like chair is "sillón" which literally means "big chair" but usually we differentiate them depending on the number of seats, "sillón individual" for one seat; "sillón doble" or "love seat" for 2 seats, and "sofá" for 3 seats.
I live in Canada and I never heard the term settee before but I knew it must be an English term because it sounds weirdly literal like how elevators are called lifts. As for Chesterfeild. I have never heard anyone call a couch that up here except for once. It seems like another outdated weird term.
Growing up in SW UK, settee was to sofa as futon is to sofabed. There would be a visible wooden frame and the arms aren't padded at all. If you had a living room and a front room, your sofa would be in the living room for general use while your (posher if less comfy) settee would be in the front room for keeping clean, showing the street your best furniture and welcoming (adult) guests.
As a Canadian, I would automatically say Couch. But I did hear people called them: - Sofa (A couple of times) - Chesterfield (Once or twice... In that "If I had a million dollars" song) - Futon (As a subtype of Couches) - Loveseat (Also a subtype) Never heard anyone say "Settee" till now, tho.
They are commonly called a lounge in Australia. Makes sense as that’s usually what you do on one. A chesterfield is usually a lounge/couch that is deep with deeply buttoned upholstery.
I used to live in Indiana. At one point my parents came across an ad that listed a davenport for sale. Not knowing what it was, as we were not originally from there, they loaded us into the car and drove what I think was around two hours to have a look at it, only to find out that it was a sofa (I use it and couch interchangeably). I don't recall if we bought it, but it still made for an adventure.
@@NotSomeJustinWithoutAMoustache I do not know, they just do. Once I found one on the summit of a high hill, where it had to have been carried through thick woods and no roads... but the view from it was great so I guess it was worth it. Lots of beer bottles around it too
Don't forget that Ottomans (not sure about Divans) are almost always a storage item too. The top lifts back on a hinge. Mainly used for bedding, and other soft items. They were dual-purpose bits of furniture. At least in my experience.
That's not an almost always, I think I've definitely seen more without storage than with. I think as a general rule the ones that come in a matched set with a chair don't have any storage because they're built like the bottom of a chair.
Growing up in Liverpool in the 60s/70s, my gran (b.1906) would refer to 'couch', and I definitely remember using 'settee'. I don't think I used 'sofa' until the 1980s onwards. Also, 'settle' was used usually for a piece of church furniture, or for something in the hallway of a posh house... I think 'Chesterfield' was reserved for big studded leather chairs/sofas.
I’m from the US, and I had never heard the word settee before. A very common word here on the west coast at least is sectional. Usually it refers to couches made of discrete pieces linked together, but I’ve heard it referring to any large sofa, especially ones with an elongated seat on one side
as an american ive never heard of couches being called settees, actually the only time ive heard that word is in rare context relating to sailing/nautical talk, i think it is a shape of sail +sofa beds are commonly called "pull-outs" here
@@Machodave2020 lol you could also totally get away saying futon here, but in my experience that is usually more specific to a certain kind of couch that flattens-out instead of folding out of the seat (which is the kind most ppl have these days)
USA (Texas) I use the word sofa. I understand when people say couch, divan, Chesterfield, and Davenport. But I've never heard of a settee. But also that two-seater sofa that you keep showing is what I would call a loveseat. EDIT: I had no idea you were going to add chaise lounges to the list of words for a sofa. To me, that's a different thing. A long chair.
My mother used " settle" for the large wooden bench/ storage seat that used to be found in the porches of farmhouses and larger dwellings so I assumed it was Scottish.
I'm from the Philadelphia area, and I'd say both sofa and couch are interchangeable, maybe couch is a bit more used than sofa. But I can definitely say that settee and chesterfield are extremely rare and if at all ever used.
I grew up in Denver, and my grandparents referred to the "davenport" in their formal room. (I believe they were from Arkansas.) I associate "chesterfield" with a particularly long sofa, often covered in leather and tufted, as per illustration. "Settee" is rare in my part of the U.S., and I'd suspect any user of that word to be either from the Southern U.S.A. or British. I would have called the un-upholstered item in the video a "pew"
From Québec, Canada. I use both sofa or divan in french and tend to use the word couch in english. I didn't even know sofa could be used in english haha. Nice video!
I have used all of these terms at one point or another. My grandmother called her couch a divan. I always thought Settee referred to an antique couch...lol
I’ve read about Chesterfields in two books written by British authors: The Queen and I, by Sue Townsend (one of the Queen’s Chesterfields has to be cut in two to fit through a door), and one of the books in the series Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams (IIRC, it was something that materialized on a cricket field at some point). Interestingly, in Portuguese (or at least in Portugal), the psychoanalyst’s chair is not a chaise longe but a divã (it’s pronounced just as divan, yes, but our final n’s and m’s aren’t consonant, so it sounds a bit more like it does in French). And the name for sofa, is sofá (soo-fah), but in some regions, people pronounce it sófá, with both vowels open (saw-fah).
My grandmother (b. 1910, upstate New York, lived her whole life in NYS) would occasionally call it a settee or davenport. I'm a life-long New Yorker myself and use couch and sofa pretty interchangeably.
Was waiting for the davenport. My grandmother called them this. The Great Lakes area in general has such a unique and interesting accent/ vernacular. Ive always wondered what gives that small area of the U.S. such a specific and easily identifyable sound.
That area of the country was mostly colonized by Scandinavian or Germanic people. THey were good farmers, and also good at manufacturing things (like davenports") and also good hearty cooks, usually involving sausage and cabbage.
Settee in the States is old fashioned and referred to two seater sofas. Couch and Sofa could refer to a wide variety of sizes but Settee was narrow in scope. Love Seat and Settee were interchangeable in the States. Davenport does mean sofa in the States. But in Britain, Davenport used to mean writing desk. The origin of the name came from Davenport Iowa. Cheap sturdy writing desks from the US were extremely common in Victorian England and Scotland.
Southern US here. Sofa and couch mostly used, but couch probably a bit more. I had a neighbor who bought a new one when I was very young, and they insisted it was a davenport. That is the only time I've heard that used around here. Now that I am older I consider a davenport a type of desk. Chesterfield to me is the exact sofa you pictured, tufted in leather with arms and back at the same height. Settee brings to mind smaller or not as heavily upholstered. A lot of formal parlor sets from around 1900 have two chairs and what I would call a settee, which are about the size of two chairs together and only upholstered on the seat, just like the chairs.
In school my nickname was Joe Couch but I live in the Pacific Northwest. So the name reaches quite far in the US. Here in the PNW, Davenport also refers to a very fancy portfolio of hotels.
I didn't know the origin of "divan", which is basically the word we use in Québec French to express the concept of couch; we also use "sofa". In English, we usually say "couch", around here. I don't think I've heard "settee" used by anyone on a regular basis but you see it in publicity brochures /catalogs or description on online stores but it would be considered as trying to appear fancy but many if you were to use it in speech. My ex-mother-in-law was from a francophone from a village at the border of Québec and Ontario and she used the term "chesterfield" quite a lot. Thank you for the etymology lesson and I'm very looking forward to you making a video on that lady and her "research".
Chase and Lounge or Lounger are to I have heard in the United States where I am from. But that could mainly refer to the style of couch, I believe. It might just be a popular term in New Mexico, where I used to live.
I remember when I was young, my cousin's grandparents told me to sit on the "davenport," causing a feeling of alarm and confusion inside my head. I chose the item I know as a "couch", as it was the only thing around that was sittable. It seemed to meet their request. I'm pretty sure that's the one and only time I've heard "davenport" used, and it stuck with me.
In Arabic we say sofa which is more of a outside couch. An inside couch it can be Called a kanaba or kanabaia or kanb However some do use sofa or sofaia in regard to indoor couches.
I am from North Texas and my paternal grandmother (born 1903) used the word Divan. I don’t recall her ever saying couch or sofa. I personally use both couch or sofa.
New England here, have always used couch and sofa interchangeably. familiar with davenport from time spent in midwest and chesterfield from Canadian TV. I watch a fair amount of British TV and I can't say for certain if I've heard settee before but I've certainly never noticed it. also had no idea that chaise lounge was originally chaise longue, weird
It means "long chair because it's like a regular chair wih the front portion lengthend so you can put our feet up. Americans couldn't wrap their tongues around the French, and snce you "lounge" in a chaise lounge, that became the name
im from northeastern us and i’ve only heard couch, sofa (no one i know calls it a sofa) and loveseat. and ottoman but those are usually more of a foot rest situation. growing up if there were two couches, one smaller and one bigger i would call them both couches but i’m pretty sure my mom would call the smaller one a love seat. but my mom has an antique bench like smaller couch that i only refer to as a loveseat
Romanian Canapea - most used word for couch Recamier - a chaise longue, sometimes use for a retractable couch Canapeu - in Transylvania usually referring to a type of bench with a storage place underneath the place you sit on, people usually keep bed sheets or clothes, recently married couples would sometimes be given one as a present for new home with all you need in it for a start in their new lives, sometimes covered with wool or something soft since it's hard to sit on for a longer time, in Transylvania people sometimes use the term sofa for couches Colțar (pron. Coltsar) - a corner couch Dormeză - a type of couch-bed
Here in The Netherlands we call it bank. Like the word bank where your money is saved. Sometimes we call it sofa but for us is that a bank but more luxurios. Also eldery people here in the Netherlands use the name sofa. Chesterfield is a expensive brand of sofas here in the Netherlands. You talked about the word settle we use sometimes the word zetel. A zetel is here a word for a luxurios chair or throne.
Here in quebec, in our own french language, most people call sofas Divan, sofa being the other most common, but using the english couch is also not heard of even coming from french speakers
7:19 Yes, before watching this video, if someone said something about a "settee" I wouldn't even know they were talking about furniture. I had no idea what it was at all
Coming from Detroit, in the American mid-west and just north of Canada;) both davenport and chesterfield are quite familiar but both sound rather old fashioned. As for settee, the use is more restricted, I've usually heard it used int reference to a built in sofa, especially on a boat not a piece of movable furniture.
I live in Canada and have never heard Chesterfield. I think it’s an old time thing or maybe something very much exclusive to Anglos who have been here for many generations, as in my neighbourhood full of Eastern European immigrants and more broadly in Toronto, which is very diverse, I’ve certainly never run into it. It has an extremely WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) vibe. In Serbian we usually say Kauč (couch) or we might refer to it by the number of seats it has so dvosjed/dvosed (two seater) is a love seat, trosjed/trosed is a more typical couch and means three seater. I’ve also head ležaj on occasion, it derives from the verb Ležati, meaning to lie down. We also have another type of couch called a sečija that is a leftover from Turkish rule, it’s a couch that runs along a wall and has no armrests but often the wall behind it is padded to offer a more comfortable back rest. You see them a lot in restaurants in the west. They’re more common in Bosnia simply because Turkish cultural influence is stronger there but you can find the, throughout the parts of the Balkans that spent a lot of time under Ottoman rule. My cottage has 2 sečije that my grandpa made, for example, as do a fair amount of houses I’ve been in and many Ottoman/Oriental themed cafes and restaurants in Bosnia feature them. You can and do recline on sečije but they are also most typically in a dining room around the table or facing a fireplace. Sometimes they face the TV, but that’s usually in small houses or apartments where the dining room and living room are merged. A sečija may also have a removable top and be used as a storage compartment but I’m not sure how traditional or proper that is.
sectional if it's big and got an angle in it. A conversation pit is a old feature on houses where the couch is the sides of a lower area of floor. murican
I live in Seattle right now, and I think it's mostly "sofa" out here, although "couch" is a close second. I think the only time I have ever heard the word "davenport" is from an older friend of mine who is a native of the city. I lived in Illinois for a while and never once heard the term.
I'm originally from New Orleans/US. Interestingly, in New Orleans, you can tell a lot about someone from what they call the thing you sit on in the living room. The longer your family has been in New Orleans, the more your family is from south of Canal Street, and the more Creole your background, the more likely you are to say "sofa," the newer the family, the more likely from north of Canal Street, and the Cajun your background, the more likely you are to say "couch." "Settee" is used but is more common for decorative pieces, high end stuff, espcially if it's in a room or a place where it's not used much, and is generally more for looks than comfort.. If you're not allowed to sit on it, it's a settee.
i call it a sofa but most people in the us call it a couch. settee is a term ive never heard and i watch a lot of british tv. chesterfield and davenports ive heard mostly refer to really fancy living room furniture
i always imagine couches to be bigger than sofas, and larger than a couch is a sectional. in order of big to small it would be sectional, couch, sofa, loveseat.
There is a close relative, the daybed, which in the US is the size of a twin or full mattress but has a back and sometimes arms, with or without cushions, so that it can serve as a sofa--useful in studio apartments or multipurpose spare rooms. It may have developed from the "fainting couch" which was a Victoria-era term for furniture similar in design to a French-style chaise longue. Since the mid-20th century chaise longue in the US often refers to what others might call a deck chair, such as found on passenger liners.
Daybeds are traditional in some European countries, particularly in Sweden, but I've seen a number of French antique examples as well. I've had a couple vintage/antique ones. My current one is half a double that extends to a full double, built kind of like Ikea furniture, but I've no idea where it came from. Might have been a nice DIY job. Comes apart into maybe 6 pieces, which has been really handy when moving.
The "fainting couch" was designed to accomodate women in tight corsets and hoop skirts, so they could relax after some ballroom dancing. They were built like a chaise lounge in order to make room for the full skirts.
I grew up near Chicago, and my mother was from Michigan. We called it a davenport. Now I live in Canada. I used to hear chesterfield when I was in Toronto more than four decades ago, but I’ve not heard the word in ages. I think it must be in decline, at least in southern Ontario.
What name do you use for couches/sofas/settees/chesterfields/whatever
coaches
Sofa. But pronounced differently. And said in a different language.
sofa or settee (pronounced sit-ee) (once i called it a sit thingy though)
I'm in Canada. Chesterfield is what my grandfather called them, but I don't hear people call them that anymore.
Sofas and settees. But I don’t really say settee much anymore.
American here, and I can confirm that I've never actually heard someone use settee to refer to a couch. Davenport is rare, but Chesterfield is definitely a new one for me. I used to sleep on a futon couch when I was a kid.
yorkshire guy here, and everyone refers to couch as “settee”
American, my generation doesn't know settee but the older generations do.
Growing up if it had room for 3 people it's a couch/sofa, room for 2 a loveseat/Davenport. Mom says a Chesterfield is a sofa but more decorative (the back is higher in the middle than the sides, makes a hump)
We had a Davenport table, a table meant to fit behind the davenport. But we just called the piece of furniture we put it behind the couch
American here (mainly southern states), and I've heard a few family members say settee. However, they generally get the same look as when they say vahz instead of vase and pee-cahn instead of pecan. Lol.
I also have family near the Canadian border in Maine, and they call it a chesterfield.
Never heard Davenport. We also just called it a couch or a love seat depending on size. But, the weird thing is, the cushions on them are sofa cushions, not couch cushions most of the time... Weird.
@@Nerd_of_Anarchy Chesterfields I thought were of the more leather , button finished variety as well
I have heard the word “Sectional” being used more and more to refer to sofas/couches. While it does at the moment refer to sofas that are modular and able to be separated into “sections”……that style of sofa is becoming so common that for some households/communities, the sectional may actually be the most common phrase used. I think it is a strong candidate to become a universal word for all sofas/couches
Here in the US we have Burger King, Dairy Queen, Tire Kingdom and other store names involving royalty. So how about a furniture store named:
Ottoman Empire?
I think that was the name of the furniture store from the (USA) television series, "The Goldbergs."
😂
I’m from the southern US and I’ve never heard of the phrase “settee.”
I have heard of Chesterfield, but exclusively when referring to that specific type of couch.
You hear “sofa” but only when someone is trying to boujee.
Couch is by far the most popular name we use around here.
from MN and never heard a sity or whatever he called it
Yup, Nebridian Here, We call it a Couch
As someone also from the southern US, the term sofa--while not uncommon--was mostly used on shitty t-shirts. iykyk.
I've only ever known it called settee
I've heard settee before, but I always assumed it was a specific type of couch.
The picture for a "settle" made me think whether it was related/how the word differentiated from the word "pew"
Canadian here and back in the 70's, my grandmother called all couches "Chesterfields". Can't say I've heard the word used much since the late 80's though.
Are you 50 now?
Im Canadian and my grandma still calls it a chesterfield. She was very excited to get a new chesterfield a few months ago.
The only person I've heard call them that is my grandfather. I'm in Ontario
I just seen this recently in a Canada vs US video
My Grandmother called them Chesterfields, and she was from the upper Midwest. She was born in 1896.
In Australia they are by far most commonly called a 'lounge', and every once in a while you hear coach, or sofa if you're being fancy.
Sofa is the commonest in India
In Germany, a new term has been introduced. If you buy a specific set of sitting furniture pieces, it contains an Einsitzer (actually a regular upholstered seat), a Zweisitzer (two-seated version of the former) and a Dreisitzer (the longest of the three).
We have had similar words in Dutch for _ages._ You'd call these a _tweezitsbank_ (for 2 people) or a _driezitsbank_ (for 3 people). I don't know if we've ever used _eenzitsbank,_ which would have been similar to Einsitzer I guess) as that ia usually just referred to as a chair (you'd use words like _foteuil, zetel, luie stoel_ etc., as just the word _stoel_ can refer to any kind of chair...
Interesting, I've never heard of these terms before (in Switzerland). But I don't buy sofas on a daily basis either.
I suppose in the UK we have 2 Seater and 3 Seater Sofas, It is also possible to get 4 seat length ones
@@highpath4776 we even have 5-seater couches here in the US. Lol
We need to make "sofa potato" a thing. From now on, that's what I will say. "Get off your arse and stop being a sofa potato."... Actually, now that I think about it, "Sofa Potato" sounds like something completely different. Like a not-so-pleasant surprise your dog or small child (or drunk uncle) left for you in the cushions.
uncle would get cussed out and be paying for a whole new couch and would never be able to enter my home again that's for sure. I never believed in giving drunk people any kind of pass on jacked up behavior while their intoxicated.
Its couch potato for me
The sofa version of a couch potato should be a sofa king 😂
@@tomasmondragon883 😂 I'm sofa king lazy
In Minnesota, I'm familiar with couch, sofa, and davenport. Futons and loveseats are as expected. Sofa beds can be called "pull-outs" and chaise lounges can also be called a "chase"
oh yeah pull outs. I associate those with hotels mostly though
I always heard sofa beds called concertina beds.
Lounge.
I’m Australian and grew up in Queensland. To me “sofa” and "couch" are American terms and "settee" is definitely British. A multi-person upholstered chair is a "lounge". A single-seater is a "lounge chair". And a matching set of them, most commonly a three seater and two single seaters, is a "lounge suite" (pronounced "sweet").
Growing up, my grandparents had a lounge that converted into a bed. The back folded down level with the seat to form a large bed. The seat could also be lifted up to revel a storage compartment which contained sheets and wooden blankets exuding a strong aroma of mothballs. This piece of furniture was referred to as the "day-and-night" and it was located on a fully enclosed verandah called the "sleep-out".
In Victoria it's mostly called a couch
I would love a video on Nancy Milford’s writing
In my area, it’s usually called a couch. My grandmother would have called it a Davenport, though.
It's arika (كنبة) where I was born in tunisia, but now I live in australia, and it's sofa, couch, loungo (pronounced lounge-oh), or cushie
Growing up in Minnesota in the 1960s, I heard my parents and grandparents generation using "Davenport". Its a name I'm completely comfortable with, yet never use myself. I bet my kids would have no idea what it means.
My maternal grandma in northern Illinois always referred to it as "the Davenport".
She was also the one that had clear plastic on every sofa in her home. Gotta keep it pristine! :)
Canadian here (Eastern, might change if you go west or north), and I use couch and sofa interchangeably, and have heard chesterfield, but never unironically. Settee is completely new to me, and I've only ever heard "futon" in french, as it is what I've been using for couch in that language for forever. Loveseat is just another word for footrest, chair, or small couch, so accurate still.
Canadian here, from central Ontario. It was called chesterfield or couch when I was growing up. I heard settee somewhere, it brings up an image of an old lady saying that when when I hear it. Sofa is what furniture stores call them, regular people rarely say sofa. Davenport I heard my mother use once, for a couch that the back folds down on.
I live in Australia and I’ve never heard “settee” before.
I’m not sure if this is common in Australia as a whole or just where I’m from, but the most common word for them here is “lounge” with some people using couch and sofa. Great video as always!
Yes, a lounge is all I've every really heard, although I do hear couch every once in a while
I've heard all three of lounge, sofa and couch used in Australia. Agree that lounge is most commonly used. In previous houses, we used to call the rooms with lounges that were separated from the dining room the lounge room.
Thank god, im not goin crazy. the whole video I was waiting for ‘Lounge’ to be mentioned, never realised it was more for us Aussie's
In addition to "couch potato" there is also "couch surfing"
As for "chaise longue" this has been very commonly transformed (by spelling errors, misreading, and fake etymology) into "chaise lounge" i.e. a chair you might find in a lounge...
Yep ! Even stores and people who sell them get that wrong often.
I feel sofa surfing sounds better XD
I grew up with those reclining pool furniture (with a slanted backrest, arms on the side, possibly for drinks, and a length considerable enough for the entire body) being referred to regularly as “chaise lounges.”
Thought it meant Long Chair
@@NeroPop It alliterates better
I live in the southeast US and the majority of people say "couch", with a substantial minority using "sofa" instead. However, all of my Jamaican relatives use the word "settee" to refer to a couch. Older folks tend to only use "settee", while young people and folks who've immigrated to the US & Canada, use couch and settee interchangeably.
The only people I know personally that say "sofa" are my Jamaican-British Grandmother and her Irish husband. But they've started saying couch since they retired to Florida.
I've always used the term futon in its original sense - to describe an all-cotton mattress - rather than as a synonym for sofa-bed. A futon is all cotton, a "maton" has two layers of foam with a layer of cotton in between, and a mattress is all foam.
In Dutch, we call a sofa/couch a "bank" or, if we're trying to sound fancy, a "sofa". The word "sofa" in Dutch also has more of a connotation of a fancy type of couch, whereas "bank" refers to all types.
In Latin legalese en banc “Means before the court” Or “before the bench”.
Bank, banc, bench are probably from the same root. In modern French, banc means bench. Canapé means couch. That one-armed affair is called a méridienne.
In Romanian, the word "bancă" means both bench (park couch), and bank (financial institution)
@@vladutcornel, same in Dutch.
So the Dutch equivalent of a couch potato is a banker?
Oh thank God. You've help ease my anxieties about someone telling me that the our channels namesake isn't in fact, a sofa.
lol
Living on the west coast USA I have only ever heard "Sofa," "Couch," and "Loveseat". "Sofa" and "Couch" get used interchangeably. Ironically most "Loveseats" could comfortably seat three people. The word is used for anything smaller than a Couch but too wide to be called a chair. Now that I think about it there seems to be some sort of standardization of the width of couch cushions, roughly 1.5 one and half times the width of a typical person's hips. One cushion means a chair, two for a Loveseat, three or more is a couch or sofa.
The 3rd place was for the chaperone
West coast, and this is very accurate. One cushion for chairs, two is a loveseat and three is a couch.
Many years ago, Saturday Night Live did a sketch about a mattress entrepreneur who ran a successful company named Mattress King with the slogan, "It's not just great, it's Mattress King great!" He ran a commercial telling us he expanded from the bedroom to the living room, and wanted to sell furniture under the name Sofa King, with a slogan similar to Mattress King's.
I've spent my entire 72 years in Northern Ohio and Southern Michigan. "Davenport" was common when I was a child, I don't recall hearing it much, if at all, these days. It's almost universally "couch", with an occasional "sofa" thrown in just to keep from getting complacent.
I mainly remember "settee" from a Monty Python sketch. Graham Chapman's character was making fun of a posh, la-di-da kind of person going to sit on the settee. Other than that, it's quite rare but seems to refer to something more like a loveseat but with minimal upholstery and fancy woodwork.
I can't recall "divan" ever being used outside of so-called classic movies of the thirties. Or as a certain kind of chicken casserole.
"Chesterfield" was a brand of cigarettes. I only learned it had to do with furniture when I read the word in a British book and had to look it up.
I grew up in central Ohio and my mother's older family used davenport for the plain furniture piece, but they had a fancy settee in one of the bedrooms. Now I am in southern Ohio and hear nothing but couch.
I've always called a pull-out sofa bed a "hide-a-bed", but no one I've asked outside of my family says that. That being said, every time I google it the results are exactly what I'm looking for, so maybe it's more common than I think.
I think I may have heard of a Chesterfield in conversation before, but primarily I know it from the song "If I Had a Million Dollars" by the Barenaked Ladies.
I've heard the "hide-a-bed" term as well.
i’m from the US and i’ve heard people use the term “settee” here, they were older. they might have had some connection to the uk, like a parent being from there, but i’ve definitely heard it used here
I have heard the term "Settee" here in the US, but its been reserved for very fancy, ornate and formal couches (often antiques). And sometimes older people will use the term in place of "love seat".
And we use the term "Chaise Longue" but pronounce it "Chase Lounge" (and most Chaise Longues are outdoor furniture for the patio).
I live in Minnesota. I remember my grandmother referring to the sofa as a davenport. Once upon a time I adopted a Shetland Sheepdog name Lord Chesterfield. Chester liked to lounge on the sofa with me while I watched television. This video triggered many fond memories. As a side note, I grew up saying couch. But somewhere in the past I started using sofa more and more often.
we called the full size one Sofa/Couch and the small one that usually matches is called a loveseat a regular size sofa comfortably seats 5 or 6 people while the loveseat usually fits 2 or 3 people and some of the smaller ones have a pull down center panel that has cupholders in it.
In England, a Davenport is a lecturn-type desk named after a militray Captain.
US Davenport is a sofa named after the manufacturer (of sofas).
2 separate types of furniture with different etymologies.
As an American born in southern California, but living in Oklahoma most my life, I can't remember ever hearing the term "settee". Fascinating!
Thanks Patrick! So honoured to be mentioned for suggesting this, and yep, I'm also Canadian and my grandmas always called it a chesterfield 😊
I live in the southeastern USA, and I’ve always called it a couch. Mine is technically a loveseat-recliner, but I usually use the generic term “couch” unless I’m specifically describing the type of couch that I have, in which case I say “loveseat-recliner.”
As a Midwesterner, I can confirm that "davenport" is used interchangeably with "couch" and "sofa" in this part of the U.S., though it does seem to be rather an "old lady" word for the object. I've also seen "chesterfield" in Canadian advertising. The only place I've ever encountered "settee" is in the song "William and Rose" by the rock group Heart, which is about an elderly couple and would seem to confirm that the word is dated. The key thing about a "futon" is that it is foldable and portable.
It's also very common in America for the letters in chaise longue to be interchanged so that the second word is "lounge" (and pronounced like a the word for a room where one relaxes). While the item shown in this video would be referred to by that name, the word is far more commonly used for plastic beach or deck furniture.
Re U or non U. Lounges are found only in Airports and hotels/ favourite description of estate agents . It's the Sitting Room UK
Funnily enough like most of the comments here point out lounge, on top of the room definition, is actually also another separate term for the furniture entirely so that might also explain the change in spelling.
In the house I Grew up in, in the US Midwest, we had a settee in the mud room (unupholstered), a couch in the family parlor (a fainting couch by design), a Davenport or sofa and loveseat in the guest parlor. The house, built in the late 19th century by a politician was ridiculously huge and weird.
I’m from Chesterfield and although I have know them being called chesterfields I haven’t ever heard it locally. I tend to use either settee or sofa and just use them interchangeably.
In the northeast U.S. growing up in the 50s and 60s, the common names I learned for a sofa were couch, sofa, and davenport. The latter seemed to replace the former when my mother bought a complete new set for our living room (BrE lounge). Other names I heard people use were settee (chiefly older generations), chaise *lounge* (note the respelling/mispronunciation), and divan (rare, maybe a touch snobbish?).
In Mexican Spanish the generic name for any couch-like chair is "sillón" which literally means "big chair" but usually we differentiate them depending on the number of seats, "sillón individual" for one seat; "sillón doble" or "love seat" for 2 seats, and "sofá" for 3 seats.
American here, for particularly large couches that come in well, sections, the name sectional is used relatively commonly.
I live in Canada and I never heard the term settee before but I knew it must be an English term because it sounds weirdly literal like how elevators are called lifts. As for Chesterfeild. I have never heard anyone call a couch that up here except for once. It seems like another outdated weird term.
We had a settle - it was like a wooden bench with storage, not at all comfortable, but pretty useful.
Growing up in SW UK, settee was to sofa as futon is to sofabed. There would be a visible wooden frame and the arms aren't padded at all. If you had a living room and a front room, your sofa would be in the living room for general use while your (posher if less comfy) settee would be in the front room for keeping clean, showing the street your best furniture and welcoming (adult) guests.
As a Canadian, I would automatically say Couch. But I did hear people called them:
- Sofa (A couple of times)
- Chesterfield (Once or twice... In that "If I had a million dollars" song)
- Futon (As a subtype of Couches)
- Loveseat (Also a subtype)
Never heard anyone say "Settee" till now, tho.
They are commonly called a lounge in Australia. Makes sense as that’s usually what you do on one. A chesterfield is usually a lounge/couch that is deep with deeply buttoned upholstery.
New Yorker here & in my family, we always called it either a sofa or a couch. If it was a small sofa, then we referred to it as a love seat.
A love seat was like a double chair, so two people could sit facing each other for conversation, and occasional hugging or kissing.
I used to live in Indiana. At one point my parents came across an ad that listed a davenport for sale. Not knowing what it was, as we were not originally from there, they loaded us into the car and drove what I think was around two hours to have a look at it, only to find out that it was a sofa (I use it and couch interchangeably). I don't recall if we bought it, but it still made for an adventure.
Whenever I find a couch out in the woods (quite often!) I call it a wild sofa (vildsoffa in Swedish), of the species ottomanus silvestri
Why do they leave sofas in the woods lol
@@NotSomeJustinWithoutAMoustache I do not know, they just do. Once I found one on the summit of a high hill, where it had to have been carried through thick woods and no roads... but the view from it was great so I guess it was worth it. Lots of beer bottles around it too
Don't forget that Ottomans (not sure about Divans) are almost always a storage item too. The top lifts back on a hinge. Mainly used for bedding, and other soft items. They were dual-purpose bits of furniture.
At least in my experience.
That's not an almost always, I think I've definitely seen more without storage than with. I think as a general rule the ones that come in a matched set with a chair don't have any storage because they're built like the bottom of a chair.
Canadian here, and we actually alternate pretty much between ‘sofa’, ‘couch’, and ‘chesterfield’. also sometimes ‘ottoman’, ‘futon’, or ‘hassock’
Growing up in Liverpool in the 60s/70s, my gran (b.1906) would refer to 'couch', and I definitely remember using 'settee'. I don't think I used 'sofa' until the 1980s onwards. Also, 'settle' was used usually for a piece of church furniture, or for something in the hallway of a posh house... I think 'Chesterfield' was reserved for big studded leather chairs/sofas.
I’m from the US, and I had never heard the word settee before.
A very common word here on the west coast at least is sectional. Usually it refers to couches made of discrete pieces linked together, but I’ve heard it referring to any large sofa, especially ones with an elongated seat on one side
as an american ive never heard of couches being called settees, actually the only time ive heard that word is in rare context relating to sailing/nautical talk, i think it is a shape of sail
+sofa beds are commonly called "pull-outs" here
Where in America are you?
@@Machodave2020 new england area
@@stuck_around wow, the Northeast really be different. I'm from the Mid-Atlantic part of the Northeast and we say futon mostly.
@@Machodave2020 lol you could also totally get away saying futon here, but in my experience that is usually more specific to a certain kind of couch that flattens-out instead of folding out of the seat (which is the kind most ppl have these days)
"The Names of the Settee" sounds like a novel.
There is a short story set in Boston in th1890's that calls it a Settee.
USA (Texas)
I use the word sofa. I understand when people say couch, divan, Chesterfield, and Davenport. But I've never heard of a settee.
But also that two-seater sofa that you keep showing is what I would call a loveseat.
EDIT: I had no idea you were going to add chaise lounges to the list of words for a sofa. To me, that's a different thing. A long chair.
My mother used " settle" for the large wooden bench/ storage seat that used to be found in the porches of farmhouses and larger dwellings so I assumed it was Scottish.
I'm from the Philadelphia area, and I'd say both sofa and couch are interchangeable, maybe couch is a bit more used than sofa. But I can definitely say that settee and chesterfield are extremely rare and if at all ever used.
I grew up in Denver, and my grandparents referred to the "davenport" in their formal room. (I believe they were from Arkansas.) I associate "chesterfield" with a particularly long sofa, often covered in leather and tufted, as per illustration. "Settee" is rare in my part of the U.S., and I'd suspect any user of that word to be either from the Southern U.S.A. or British. I would have called the un-upholstered item in the video a "pew"
Growing up it was called Davenport. I didn't hear them called Couch until much later in life and calling them a sofa is very new for me.
From Québec, Canada. I use both sofa or divan in french and tend to use the word couch in english. I didn't even know sofa could be used in english haha. Nice video!
Divan seems like it could be connected to the practice of using old papers to stuff some cushions.
I have used all of these terms at one point or another. My grandmother called her couch a divan. I always thought Settee referred to an antique couch...lol
Here in the US I commonly hear “settee” for sofas in yachts, and “divan” for sofas in private jets - sadly I’ve not experienced sitting on either.
I’ve read about Chesterfields in two books written by British authors: The Queen and I, by Sue Townsend (one of the Queen’s Chesterfields has to be cut in two to fit through a door), and one of the books in the series Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams (IIRC, it was something that materialized on a cricket field at some point).
Interestingly, in Portuguese (or at least in Portugal), the psychoanalyst’s chair is not a chaise longe but a divã (it’s pronounced just as divan, yes, but our final n’s and m’s aren’t consonant, so it sounds a bit more like it does in French). And the name for sofa, is sofá (soo-fah), but in some regions, people pronounce it sófá, with both vowels open (saw-fah).
My grandmother (b. 1910, upstate New York, lived her whole life in NYS) would occasionally call it a settee or davenport. I'm a life-long New Yorker myself and use couch and sofa pretty interchangeably.
Was waiting for the davenport. My grandmother called them this. The Great Lakes area in general has such a unique and interesting accent/ vernacular. Ive always wondered what gives that small area of the U.S. such a specific and easily identifyable sound.
That area of the country was mostly colonized by Scandinavian or Germanic people. THey were good farmers, and also good at manufacturing things (like davenports") and also good hearty cooks, usually involving sausage and cabbage.
YAY YOU INCLUDED CHESTERFIELD!! Thanks :) - Love a Canadian :)
Settee in the States is old fashioned and referred to two seater sofas. Couch and Sofa could refer to a wide variety of sizes but Settee was narrow in scope. Love Seat and Settee were interchangeable in the States.
Davenport does mean sofa in the States. But in Britain, Davenport used to mean writing desk. The origin of the name came from Davenport Iowa. Cheap sturdy writing desks from the US were extremely common in Victorian England and Scotland.
Southern US here. Sofa and couch mostly used, but couch probably a bit more. I had a neighbor who bought a new one when I was very young, and they insisted it was a davenport. That is the only time I've heard that used around here. Now that I am older I consider a davenport a type of desk. Chesterfield to me is the exact sofa you pictured, tufted in leather with arms and back at the same height. Settee brings to mind smaller or not as heavily upholstered. A lot of formal parlor sets from around 1900 have two chairs and what I would call a settee, which are about the size of two chairs together and only upholstered on the seat, just like the chairs.
Born and raised in the US and you're correct I have never heard the word settee until i'd seen this vid :)
11:17 Interesting that in Polish word Dywan from same root as Divan means Carpet or Rug.
In school my nickname was Joe Couch but I live in the Pacific Northwest. So the name reaches quite far in the US. Here in the PNW, Davenport also refers to a very fancy portfolio of hotels.
I didn't know the origin of "divan", which is basically the word we use in Québec French to express the concept of couch; we also use "sofa". In English, we usually say "couch", around here. I don't think I've heard "settee" used by anyone on a regular basis but you see it in publicity brochures /catalogs or description on online stores but it would be considered as trying to appear fancy but many if you were to use it in speech.
My ex-mother-in-law was from a francophone from a village at the border of Québec and Ontario and she used the term "chesterfield" quite a lot.
Thank you for the etymology lesson and I'm very looking forward to you making a video on that lady and her "research".
Chase and Lounge or Lounger are to I have heard in the United States where I am from. But that could mainly refer to the style of couch, I believe. It might just be a popular term in New Mexico, where I used to live.
I remember when I was young, my cousin's grandparents told me to sit on the "davenport," causing a feeling of alarm and confusion inside my head. I chose the item I know as a "couch", as it was the only thing around that was sittable. It seemed to meet their request. I'm pretty sure that's the one and only time I've heard "davenport" used, and it stuck with me.
In Arabic we say sofa which is more of a outside couch. An inside couch it can be Called a kanaba or kanabaia or kanb
However some do use sofa or sofaia in regard to indoor couches.
I am from North Texas and my paternal grandmother (born 1903) used the word Divan. I don’t recall her ever saying couch or sofa. I personally use both couch or sofa.
New England here, have always used couch and sofa interchangeably. familiar with davenport from time spent in midwest and chesterfield from Canadian TV. I watch a fair amount of British TV and I can't say for certain if I've heard settee before but I've certainly never noticed it.
also had no idea that chaise lounge was originally chaise longue, weird
It means "long chair because it's like a regular chair wih the front portion lengthend so you can put our feet up. Americans couldn't wrap their tongues around the French, and snce you "lounge" in a chaise lounge, that became the name
im from northeastern us and i’ve only heard couch, sofa (no one i know calls it a sofa) and loveseat. and ottoman but those are usually more of a foot rest situation. growing up if there were two couches, one smaller and one bigger i would call them both couches but i’m pretty sure my mom would call the smaller one a love seat. but my mom has an antique bench like smaller couch that i only refer to as a loveseat
"The variety of names and the acts of sitting on them are the only elements that these two things have in common." ....challenge accepted
Romanian
Canapea - most used word for couch
Recamier - a chaise longue, sometimes use for a retractable couch
Canapeu - in Transylvania usually referring to a type of bench with a storage place underneath the place you sit on, people usually keep bed sheets or clothes, recently married couples would sometimes be given one as a present for new home with all you need in it for a start in their new lives, sometimes covered with wool or something soft since it's hard to sit on for a longer time, in Transylvania people sometimes use the term sofa for couches
Colțar (pron. Coltsar) - a corner couch
Dormeză - a type of couch-bed
A lot of people in my part of Canada quite a few people refer to sofa bed as a hide a bed.
Here in The Netherlands we call it bank.
Like the word bank where your money is saved.
Sometimes we call it sofa but for us is that a bank but more luxurios.
Also eldery people here in the Netherlands use the name sofa.
Chesterfield is a expensive brand of sofas here in the Netherlands.
You talked about the word settle we use sometimes the word zetel.
A zetel is here a word for a luxurios chair or throne.
Here in quebec, in our own french language, most people call sofas Divan, sofa being the other most common, but using the english couch is also not heard of even coming from french speakers
7:19 Yes, before watching this video, if someone said something about a "settee" I wouldn't even know they were talking about furniture. I had no idea what it was at all
Coming from Detroit, in the American mid-west and just north of Canada;) both davenport and chesterfield are quite familiar but both sound rather old fashioned. As for settee, the use is more restricted, I've usually heard it used int reference to a built in sofa, especially on a boat not a piece of movable furniture.
I live in Canada and have never heard Chesterfield. I think it’s an old time thing or maybe something very much exclusive to Anglos who have been here for many generations, as in my neighbourhood full of Eastern European immigrants and more broadly in Toronto, which is very diverse, I’ve certainly never run into it. It has an extremely WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) vibe.
In Serbian we usually say Kauč (couch) or we might refer to it by the number of seats it has so dvosjed/dvosed (two seater) is a love seat, trosjed/trosed is a more typical couch and means three seater. I’ve also head ležaj on occasion, it derives from the verb Ležati, meaning to lie down.
We also have another type of couch called a sečija that is a leftover from Turkish rule, it’s a couch that runs along a wall and has no armrests but often the wall behind it is padded to offer a more comfortable back rest. You see them a lot in restaurants in the west. They’re more common in Bosnia simply because Turkish cultural influence is stronger there but you can find the, throughout the parts of the Balkans that spent a lot of time under Ottoman rule. My cottage has 2 sečije that my grandpa made, for example, as do a fair amount of houses I’ve been in and many Ottoman/Oriental themed cafes and restaurants in Bosnia feature them.
You can and do recline on sečije but they are also most typically in a dining room around the table or facing a fireplace. Sometimes they face the TV, but that’s usually in small houses or apartments where the dining room and living room are merged.
A sečija may also have a removable top and be used as a storage compartment but I’m not sure how traditional or proper that is.
sectional if it's big and got an angle in it. A conversation pit is a old feature on houses where the couch is the sides of a lower area of floor. murican
I live in Seattle right now, and I think it's mostly "sofa" out here, although "couch" is a close second.
I think the only time I have ever heard the word "davenport" is from an older friend of mine who is a native of the city. I lived in Illinois for a while and never once heard the term.
My grandmother referred to the couch as a Davenport. I grew up in Michigan. So there you go.
I'm originally from New Orleans/US. Interestingly, in New Orleans, you can tell a lot about someone from what they call the thing you sit on in the living room. The longer your family has been in New Orleans, the more your family is from south of Canal Street, and the more Creole your background, the more likely you are to say "sofa," the newer the family, the more likely from north of Canal Street, and the Cajun your background, the more likely you are to say "couch." "Settee" is used but is more common for decorative pieces, high end stuff, espcially if it's in a room or a place where it's not used much, and is generally more for looks than comfort.. If you're not allowed to sit on it, it's a settee.
never heard of settee. "settle" reminds me a lot of the german word for armchair tho: "sessel". it's pronounced the same except with S instead of T.
i call it a sofa but most people in the us call it a couch. settee is a term ive never heard and i watch a lot of british tv. chesterfield and davenports ive heard mostly refer to really fancy living room furniture
i always imagine couches to be bigger than sofas, and larger than a couch is a sectional. in order of big to small it would be sectional, couch, sofa, loveseat.
My grandparents called their sofa a Davenport... we are American, Midwestern, North Wisconsin near Lake Michigan
I can vouch for that usage of "davenport". I'm from Ohio, and my grandmother used to use that term.
There is a close relative, the daybed, which in the US is the size of a twin or full mattress but has a back and sometimes arms, with or without cushions, so that it can serve as a sofa--useful in studio apartments or multipurpose spare rooms. It may have developed from the "fainting couch" which was a Victoria-era term for furniture similar in design to a French-style chaise longue. Since the mid-20th century chaise longue in the US often refers to what others might call a deck chair, such as found on passenger liners.
Daybeds are traditional in some European countries, particularly in Sweden, but I've seen a number of French antique examples as well.
I've had a couple vintage/antique ones. My current one is half a double that extends to a full double, built kind of like Ikea furniture, but I've no idea where it came from. Might have been a nice DIY job. Comes apart into maybe 6 pieces, which has been really handy when moving.
The "fainting couch" was designed to accomodate women in tight corsets and hoop skirts, so they could relax after some ballroom dancing. They were built like a chaise lounge in order to make room for the full skirts.
I grew up near Chicago, and my mother was from Michigan. We called it a davenport. Now I live in Canada. I used to hear chesterfield when I was in Toronto more than four decades ago, but I’ve not heard the word in ages. I think it must be in decline, at least in southern Ontario.