Couplynge

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. The act of fastening or linking two things so they become connected ; an archaic term for physical sexual union between two people
2. Joining or uniting separate parts into one connected whole ; a dated euphemism for the act of sexual intercourse
3. The process of binding two items together into a single unit ; an old-fashioned way of referring to sexual relations between partners

Etymology: "Couplynge" is a Middle English spelling of a word that is now written "coupling," and it comes from Old French "copler," meaning to fasten or join together. That verb descends from Latin "copulare," to link or bind, which is built from "co-" (together) and "apere" (to fasten). English speakers borrowed the root in the 14th century, when "couplen" appeared in the sense of joining animals or people in pairs, and the noun for the act or the fastening followed. The word's long reach into English life is more striking than its Latin grammar. "Copulare" was a common term in Roman writing for binding things into a unit, and it carried this sense of binding into medieval Latin and then into the vernacular. The same root gives English "copulate," which kept the older meaning of joining while the Church and later scientific writers narrowed it toward the biological sense. "Coupling" avoided that narrowing in everyday use and stayed with mechanical and social joining, as in railway carriages and couples at a dance.