so i lit a fire

[pensnest]

Do you sit on

a couch
a sofa
a settee
something else in the same line (no fair saying 'a chair')?

Do you perceive any difference between these three things? Can you define it?

Comments

[smallhobbit]

Settee I think. And no, to me they're the same item of furniture.

[stellar_dust]

Either a couch or a sofa. That's the plush, well-cushioned, all-over-upholstered item in the living room that has room for three people to sit or one person to stretch out for a nap. I have relatives who would call it a davenport.

A settee might be a little fancier, maybe less plush upholstery, and often only seats two people. A settee might be wicker porch furniture with foam cushions that tie on, or an antique-looking piece with no upholstery on legs/arms and soft cushioning on back and seat that is permanently fastened down (that is, no removable cushions).

A settee might also be called a loveseat in some circumstances, but something that seats two that is upholstered like a couch (see above) could also be called a loveseat.

[pensnest]

Now, this is very interesting! I've been trying to define 'settee' for myself, and it comes to mind that my grandparents had a settee, but actually it was an old-fashioned couch/sofa, not a big, cushiony one but the kind with slightly hard arms and thinner cushions. So I think, for me, settee means 'old-fashioned and less comfy sofa'. Very interesting that you define it as something distinctly more fancy. Cool.

[sixbeforelunch]

A couch, generally, although occasionally a sofa.

Couches and sofas are the same thing. I’ve hardly ever heard settee used, but my brain insists that it sounds vaguely French and therefore must be fancy.

(I’m American, and while my dialect is a bit of a mixed bag, it’s primarily mid-Atlantic.)

[pensnest]

I tend to think of couch as more American and sofa as more British, which is partly why I asked, but like you I generally use the terms interchangeably. I *think* a sofa might be a bit softer. It sounds softer. Thanks!

[corvidology]

I would use them interchangeably but I usually use 'couch' and sometime, sofa.

My grandmother used settee all the time but it looked like a couch to me. :D

I had an Australian colleague who called it a 'lounge' and the room it was housed in was the 'lounge room.'

[pensnest]

A 'lounge' is interesting, and not one I've come across before, though 'lounger' would - for me - be a chair which extends to a semi-recumbent position. Thanks!

[ephemera]

That is .... a harder question than I expected.

I am currently sitting on an item of furniture that is simultaneously the blue couch, and the squishy sofa, so I think I do use those two more or less interchangeably, but a settee seems to me a bit more formal and upright and fancy?

[pensnest]

I associate a 'settee' with a slightly more formal three piece suite, such as my grandma had. Details a bit fancier than a 'couch', eg little wing tips on the edges of the back, something or other on the arms. I totally appreciate that your couch is coloured and sofa is squishy, as to me, a sofa is somehow a little bit squishier than a couch. Thanks!

[sperrywink]

couch. A sofa is usually the same thing, but if it has like recliner seats or anything fancy, it is a couch. A sofa is a simple couch.

A settee is smaller and fancier as indicated above by stellar_dust.

[pensnest]

Interesting - I think I'd probably be the other way round with couch and sofa. There seems to be a mounting consensus that a settee is a fancier item. Cool!

[sporky_rat]

A couch and sofa are similar but not the same, a sofa is a fancier couch, usually seats three to four, depending on the humans. A settee is much fancier, usually lower arms, not nearly as comfy to sit on, and more wood or metal than fabric or leather. A chaise lounge has no arms or very short ones with a long seat and a curved back. I have a settee in my library, a sofa and a couch in the living room, and a chaise lounge in the mudroom.

[pensnest]

There does seem to be a general agreement that a settee is fancier and less comfortable, which, yes, makes sense. I like your graded distinctions, though I think that for me, a couch is bigger than a sofa.

I was going to suggest your 'chaise lounge' is a typo for 'chaise longue', but corvidology above cited 'lounge' as an alternate for couch, so perhaps a chaise lounge is what it is now called. I can imagine that the language has slipped it from one name to another that makes more sense for people who don't speak a lot of French.

[wenchpixie]

They're all the same thing to me, although I'd call it a couch - but up here what you call it is very tied to both the region and class that you're (or your people are) from. As we've become more mobile as a society, the class thing is less of an obvious signifier (I suspect the very VERY posh would judge, because they all go to the same boarding schools, but for the more normal amongst us, not so much).

[pensnest]

I *think* I used to call my possessions sofas (still do, really) but have become accustomes to 'couch' (a word which is beginning to look meaningless after all this repetition) through writing in an American fandom, so I've always thought couch leans towards American and sofa towards British. I'm sure you are right that there is a U word, though! Cheers.

[wenchpixie]

FWIW I definitely think of Sofa as an English thing, but I couldn't tell you why!

[pensnest]

According to somebody, Mitford says 'sofa' is the U word, couches and settees are used by parvenus and upstarts. Huh.

[dine]

usually couch - very rarely sofa and never settee. one of my grandmothers called it a davenport, but that's not common around here as far as I know

[pensnest]

That's very interesting, because I always thought a davenport was a desk, but I see that it is a regionalism for couch. Thanks!

[semielliptical]

I use the word couch most often, but also sofa. I don't perceive any difference between the two. Like others, I think of a settee as similar but more dainty and/or fancier.

[pensnest]

There does seem to be a general agreement that a settee is fancier, and perhaps a little old-fashioned. I associate the word with my grandma's.... lounge seating, and it was a little bit fancier and a bit less comfy than my own sofas. Thanks!

[twistedchick]

We have an old couch, which does not rise to the level of sofa (newer, better cushions). It seats three. A settee seats one or two, is built more elegantly/delicately and is a more 'polite' piece of furniture. I can't see putting my feet up on one.

[pensnest]

Interesting - since you mention it, I do tend to think of the oldest, most beaten-up version as a couch rather than a sofa (ack! I cannot tell you how many times I have typed coach). These subtleties fascinate me.

[bethctg]

I sit on a couch. I *want* to sit on a sofa because people in books I read as an impressionable youth always had sofas. (I now believe they are the same, tho'.) Settees are fancy museum quality pieces of furniture and not meant to be sat on unless it is a special occasion.

[pensnest]

It's so interesting getting the different responses! There does seem to be general agreement that settees are fancier than the others.

[turlough]

I usually sit on a chair but I do have a sofa in my home :-) Sofa sounds more English to me and couch more American but they're both a cushy, upholstered sort of furniture. A settee I've always imagined as a wooden bench with a wooden back with cushions, either loose or fastened down. Why I think of them like that I've no idea however :-)

[pensnest]

It's funny, I don't remember learning the word couch, I think it has been part of British English for a long while, but I generally use it in American fic, and it would seem odd to me to write sofa in there. I'm fairly sure they are basically the same thing. The settee... I'm going to look for some pictures now!

[turps]

I've just read through all your comments and they're very interesting, and no doubt don't help at all as there's no consensus

For me, I have a couch and thinking about it, have never heard anyone in this area refer to it as a sofa, though on occasions settee is used.

[pensnest]

Ah, so not just 'regional' in the sense of 'being American' then! Somehow I am not surprised. It amuses me greatly how many different distinctions are used!

[manna]

They're all sofas to me.

I think we used settee mostly when I was a kid, interchangeably with sofa. Never couch, though.

[pensnest]

I'm pretty sure my grandma had a settee, and it was a bit pointier and less cushiony than our current sofas. I still can't decide what a 'couch' means to me (except if I'm writing in American, it means a sofa).

I'm shamefully late to this, but I have OPINIONS!

[brandywine28]

To me, these three words are all interchangeable! However, any American under the age of one hundred who uses "settee" with a straight face is almost certainly going to be unforgivably pretentious.

Re: I'm shamefully late to this, but I have OPINIONS!

[pensnest]

Whereas here, it's more likely to mean the speaker is more than eighty years old, I think. I will never stop discovering subtleties in this language we almost share.