bed
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
From Middle English bed, bedde, from Old English bedd, from Proto-West Germanic *badi, from Proto-Germanic *badją (“resting-place, plot of ground”).
Cognate with North Frisian baad, beed, Saterland Frisian Bääd, West Frisian bêd, Low German Bedd, Dutch bed, German Bett, Swedish bädd, Icelandic beður, all meaning “bed”.
The Proto-Germanic term may in turn be from Proto-Indo-European *bʰedʰ- (“to dig”) with various theories explaining the development in meaning. If it is, the term is also cognate with Ancient Greek βοθυρος (bothuros, “pit”), Latin fossa (“ditch”), Latvian bedre (“hole”), Welsh bedd (“grave”), Breton bez (“grave”); and probably also Russian бодать (bodatʹ, “to butt, gore”).
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bed (plural beds)
To prepare a bed (in the sense of sleeping furniture) is usually to make the bed, or (Southern US) to spread the bed, the verb spread probably having been developed from bedspread.
Like many nouns denoting places where people spend time, bed requires no article after certain prepositions: hence in bed (“lying in a bed”), go to bed (“get into a bed”), and so on. The forms in a bed, etc. do exist, but tend to imply mere presence in the bed, without it being for the purpose of sleep.
bed (third-person singular simple present beds, present participle bedding, simple past and past participle bedded)
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