couchant
Americanadjective
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lying down; crouching.
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Heraldry. (of an animal) represented as lying on its stomach with its hind legs and forelegs pointed forward.
adjective
Etymology
Origin of couchant
1400–50; late Middle English < Middle French, present participle of coucher to lay or lie. See couch, -ant
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Gen. Ambrose Burnside as commander of the Army of the Potomac, “but if the couchant lion postpones his spring too long, people will begin wondering whether he is not a stuffed specimen after all.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 23, 2026
“What I want to see before I die,” Frederick Douglass wrote, “is a monument representing the negro, not couchant on his knees like a four-footed animal, but erect on his feet like a man.”
From Washington Post ● Dec. 31, 2020
Which is the proper symbol for the Tories, asked the Manchester Guardian, lion rampant or hen couchant?
From Time Magazine Archive
An Egyptian sphinx has the body of a lion couchant with the head of a man.
From Cleopatra's Needle A History of the London Obelisk, with an Exposition of the Hieroglyphics by King, James
A mere black figure it was, wrapped in a great cloak, on his head the slouched hat of the Roussillon shepherds, looped up at the side, and a huge dog couchant at his feet.
From The White Plumes of Navarre A Romance of the Wars of Religion by Crockett, S. R. (Samuel Rutherford)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
