cushion

noun

1. 1

   A soft mass of material stuffed into a cloth bag, used for comfort or support.

   “There the cause of death was soon ascertained ; the victim of this daring outrage had been stabbed to death from ear to ear with a long, sharp instrument, in shape like an antique stiletto, which […] was subsequently found under the cushions of the hansom.[…]”

   There were many wooden chairs for the bulk of his visitors, and two wicker armchairs with red cloth cushions for superior people. From the packing-cases had emerged some Indian clubs,[…], and all these articles[…] made a scattered and untidy decoration that Mrs. Clough assiduously dusted and greatly cherished.

2. 2

   A soft mass of material stuffed into a cloth bag, used for comfort or support. A throw pillow.

3. 3

   A soft mass of material stuffed into a cloth bag, used for comfort or support. A thin, flat pad used on hard chairs and sometimes toilet seats.

4. 4

   Something acting as a cushion, especially to absorb a shock or impact. A pad on which gilders cut gold leaf.

5. 5

   Something acting as a cushion, especially to absorb a shock or impact. A mass of steam in the end of the cylinder of a steam engine to receive the impact of the piston.

6. 6

   Something acting as a cushion, especially to absorb a shock or impact. The lip around a table in cue sports which absorbs some of the impact of the billiard balls and bounces them back.

7. 7

   Something acting as a cushion, especially to absorb a shock or impact. The pillow used in making bone lace.

8. 8

   Something acting as a cushion, especially to absorb a shock or impact. An engraver's pad.

9. 9

   historicalSomething acting as a cushion, especially to absorb a shock or impact. The rubber of an electrical machine.

10. 10

    historicalSomething acting as a cushion, especially to absorb a shock or impact. A pad supporting a woman's hair.

11. 11

    figurativea sufficient quantity of an intangible object (like points or minutes) to allow for some of those points, for example, to be lost without hurting one's chances for successfully completing an objective.

    Wisla made a bright start to the second half and Fulham keeper Mark Schwarzer was twice called into action, first saving Gervasio Nunez's deflected 20-yard effort and then smothering Gargula's free-kick. But Fulham soon had the cushion of a third goal after more outstanding build-up play.

    It will most likely not alter the destination of the league title, which still seems bound for City, who retain an 11-point cushion at the top

12. 12

    figurativea sufficient quantity of an intangible object (like points or minutes) to allow for some of those points, for example, to be lost without hurting one's chances for successfully completing an objective. Money kept in reserve.

    The entry-level wages are abominable, still something like $15,000 a year. You can't possibly be a working class person and live on that in New York City. You need some kind of family "cushion." So what you'll find in publishing is middle class professionals, people who see material about working class people as "foreign."

    Interest coverage is important because it is an indicator of how much cushion a company has in making its interest payments.

    If one of the banks has a significant enough cushion of capital and a strong enough balance sheet, then it would not experience a bank run, and the domino effect in panel A would not have occurred.

13. 13

    historicalThe dancer in the cushion dance who currently holds the cushion, or the dance itself.

    But of these kind of second Courses I am the onely Cook; though yet those ordinary practises of our Feasts, as choosing a King, throwing Dice, drinking Healths, trouling it Round, dancing the Cushion and the like, were not invented by the seven Wise Men but my Self, and that too for the common pleasure of Mankind.

    The young man advances to the fiddler, drops a penny in the pot, and gives it to one of his companions. Cushion then dances round the room, followed by the pot, and when they again reach the fiddler, the cushion says, in a sort of recitative, accompanied by the music, 'This dance it will no farther go.'

    In reference to a nuptial feast, the cushion dance at weddings is thus mentioned in the Apophthegms of King James, the Earl of Worcester and others (1658): “At last when the Masque was ended and Time had brought in the Supper, the Cushion led the Dance out of the Parlour into the Hall;”

verb

1. 1

   To furnish with cushions.

   to cushion a sofa

2. 2

   To seat or place on, or as on a cushion.

   How many doughty monarchs, in later and more polite ages, would have slept in cottages, and have worked in falls, instead of inhabiting palaces, and being cushioned up in thrones, if this rule of government had continued in force ?

3. 3

   figurativeTo absorb or deaden the impact of.

   to cushion a blow

   […]the development of popular interest in Parliament made it less possible for the Privy Council in Dublin to cushion a bill which the Commons had presented to the Lord Lieutenant[…]

   And then I’d strip the message back to a basic sentence, not cushion it with an apology (an apology – from me!) or explain why I wanted the antisocial behaviour to stop.

4. 4

   figurativeTo conceal or cover up, as under a cushion.

Forms

plural

cushions

past tense

cushioned

past participle

cushioned

present participle

cushioning

third person singular

cushions