sofa

Etymology

Borrowed from French sofa, ultimately from Arabic صُفَّة (ṣuffa, “a long seat made of stone or brick”) covered with rich carpets and cushions, and used for sitting upon. Cognate with Aramaic צפא/ܨܦܬܐ (ṣipā’, ṣeppəṯā, “mat, matting”). The word may have entered European languages from al-Andalus (Muslim Iberia) or through Turkish.

noun

1. (Middle East architecture, archaic) A raised area of a building's floor, usually covered with carpeting, used for sitting.
2. (furniture, chiefly UK, India) An upholstered seat with a raised back and one or two raised ends, long enough to comfortably accommodate two or more people.

verb

1. To furnish with one or more sofas.
   The appearance of a student's apartment, though by no means splendid, is decidedly comfortable ; it is well cushioned and sofaed, with a proper proportion of arm chairs, and a general air of respectability — much better on the whole than our student's rooms ever are. 1852, Charles Astor Bristed, Five years in an English university, page 14
   First, it will surprize you to learn that instead of the venerable simplicity which reigns in St. Stephen's chapel, the H. of Representatives, besides being stoved, carpeted, desked, and sofaed in the most luxurious style, rivals and indeed surpasses the Legislature of Paris in decoration and drapery. 1890, Stanley Lane-Poole, The Life of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe - Volume 1, page 100
   I and another therefore entirely occupied our stateroom, which was sofaed round, being just large enough for two to lie down and a third to sit with his feet up and his head on his knees. 1893, Henry Swinglehurst, Silver Mines and Incidents of Travel, page 97
   It was a lavish, fully draped, fully sofaed, fully radiator-covered nineteenth-century deluxe German hotel suite. 1981, David A. Kaufelt, The Wine and the Music, page 331
2. To seat or lay down on a sofa.
   Cliques of three or more are formed, each member of which goes in search of victims, and the first female found complaining of pain in the lower part of her back, is immediately run down, corralled, cornered, so to speak, and sans ceremonie she is at once tabled, sofaed or beded, or in the absence of these relics of refinement she is floored or she may have to submit standing (especially if the doctor is in a hury and meets her at the gate or corner drug store) with an unerring plunge, of a not overly clean index finger, the darksome cavern is penetrated and perhaps, not, a cervix is touched and reveals, of course, a lacerated cervix, just as had been predicted. 1895, Denver Medical Times - Volume 5, page 191
   A few, feeble words—my first—to tell you I have left my room this morning and am shaven and shorn and dressed and sofaed in my writing room, after a terrible ten days or more. October 22 1880, Benjamin Disraeli, chapter XVI, in George Earle Buckle, editor, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, volume VI: 1876–1881, published 1929, Hughenden Manor; To Lady Bradford, page 592
   Many a time back in my boozing days when I was sofaed too. 2006, Kim Akass, Janet McCabe, Reading 'Desperate Housewives': Beyond the White Picket Fence