English

Verb

couching

1. present participle of couch.

Noun

couching ‎(plural couchings)

1. An act of couching.
   • 2003, Josep Asunción, The Complete Book of Papermaking, New York, N.Y.: Lark Books, ISBN 978-1-57990-456-2, page 80:

     Couching involves transferring the sheet of paper from the mould to the felt.

   1. (ophthalmology) An early, largely obsolete, method of treating a cataract by using a sharp object to displace the opaque lens in the eye.
      • 2006, Sanduk Ruit; Geoffrey C. Tabin; Charles C. Wykoff, “Cataract Surgery”, in Fighting Global Blindness: Improving World Vision through Cataract Elimination, Washington, D.C.: American Public Health Association, ISBN 978-0-87553-067-3, page 21:

        [C]ataract surgery has been employed for more than 20 centuries. The primary surgical technique for the large majority of this time was a procedure called couching. The first written description of couching is from an Indian surgeon, Susruta, circa 600 BC, involving the insertion of a needle into the eye and displacement of the lens out of the visual axis through either inferior or superior dislocation.

   2. (textiles) Embroidering by laying the materials upon the surface of the foundation, instead of drawing them through.