BED, n. [The sense is a lay or spread, from laying or setting.]

1. A place or an article of furniture to sleep and take rest on; in modern times, and among civilized men, a sack or tick filled with feathers or wool; but a bed may be made of straw or any other materials. The word bed includes often the bedstead.
2. Lodging; a convenient place for sleep.
3. Marriage; matrimonial connection. George, the eldest son of his second bed. – Clarendon.
4. A plat or level piece of ground in a garden, usually a little raised above the adjoining ground. – Bacon.
5. The channel of a river, or that part in which the water usually flows. – Milton.
6. Any hollow place, especially in the arts; a hollow place in which any thing rests; as, the bed of a mortar.
7. A layer; a stratum; an extended mass of any thing, whether upon the earth or within it; as, a bed of sulphur; a bed of sand or clay.
8. Pain, torment. Rev. ii The grave. Is. lvii. The lawful use of wedlock. – Heb. xiii. The bed of the carriage of a gun, is a thick plank which lies under the piece, being, as it were the body of the carriage. The bed of a mortar is a solid piece of oak, hollow in the middle, to receive the breech and half the trunnions. In masonry, bed is a range of stones, and the joint of the bed is the mortar between the two stones placed over each other. – Encyc. Bed of justice, in France, was a throne on which the king was seated when he went to parliament. Hence the phrase, to hold a bed of justice. To make a bed, is to put it in order after it has been used. To bring to bed, to deliver of a child, is rarely used. But in the passive form, to be brought to bed, that is, to be delivered of a child, is common. It is often followed by of; as, to be brought to bed of a son. To put to bed, in midwifery, is to deliver of a child. Dining bed, or discubitory bed, among the ancients, a bed on which persons lay at meals. It was four or five feet high, and would hold three or four persons. Three of these beds were ranged by a square table, one side of the table being left open, and accessible to the waiters. Hence the Latin name for the table and the room, triclinium, or three beds. – Encyc. From board and bed. In law, a separation of man and wife, without dissolving the bands of matrimony, is called a separation from board and bed, a mensa et toro. In this case the wife has a suitable maintenance allotted to her out of the husband's estate, called alimony. – Blackstone.

To cohabit; to use the same bed. If he be married and bed with his wife. – Wiseman.

1. To place in a bed. – Bacon.
2. To go to bed with. [Unusual.] – Shak.
3. To make partaker of the bed. – Bacon.
4. To plant and inclose or cover; to set or lay and inclose; as, to bed the roots of a plant in soft mold.
5. To lay in any hollow place, surrounded or inclosed; as, to bed a stone.
6. To lay in a place of rest or security, covered, surrounded or inclosed; as, a fish bedded in sand, or under a bank.
7. To lay in a stratum; to stratify; to lay in order, or flat; as, bedded clay, bedded hairs. – Shak.

1. An article of furniture to sleep or take rest in or on; a couch. Specifically: A sack or mattress, filled with some soft material, in distinction from the bedstead on which it is placed (as, a feather bed), or this with the bedclothes added. In a general sense, any thing or place used for sleeping or reclining on or in, as a quantity of hay, straw, leaves, or twigs.
   
   

   And made for him [a horse] a leafy bed.
   Byron.

   I wash, wring, brew, bake, . . . make the beds.
   Shak.

   In bed he slept not for my urging it.
   Shak.

2. To place in a bed.
   
   
   [Obs.] Bacon.
3. To go to bed; to cohabit.
   
   

   If he be married, and bed with his wife.
   Wiseman.

4. (Used as the symbol of matrimony) Marriage.
   
   

   George, the eldest son of his second bed.
   Clarendon.

5. To make partaker of one's bed] to cohabit with.
   
   

   I'll to the Tuscan wars, and never bed her.
   Shak.

6. A plat or level piece of ground in a garden, usually a little raised above the adjoining ground.
   
   
   "Beds of hyacinth and roses." Milton.
7. To furnish with a bed or bedding.
8. A mass or heap of anything arranged like a bed; as, a bed of ashes or coals.
9. To plant or arrange in beds; to set, or cover, as in a bed of soft earth; as, to bed the roots of a plant in mold.
10. The bottom of a watercourse, or of any body of water; as, the bed of a river.
    
    

    So sinks the daystar in the ocean bed.
    Milton.

11. To lay or put in any hollow place, or place of rest and security, surrounded or inclosed; to embed; to furnish with or place upon a bed or foundation; as, to bed a stone; it was bedded on a rock.
    
    

    Among all chains or clusters of mountains where large bodies of still water are bedded.
    Wordsworth.

12. A layer or seam, or a horizontal stratum between layers; as, a bed of coal, iron, etc.
13. To dress or prepare the surface of stone) so as to serve as a bed.
14. See Gun carriage, and Mortar bed.
15. To lay flat; to lay in order; to place in a horizontal or recumbent position.
    
    
    "Bedded hair." Shak.
16. The horizontal surface of a building stone; as, the upper and lower beds.
    
    
    (b)
17. The foundation or the more solid and fixed part or framing of a machine; or a part on which something is laid or supported; as, the bed of an engine.
18. The superficial earthwork, or ballast, of a railroad.
19. The flat part of the press, on which the form is laid.
    
    

    * Bed is much used adjectively or in combination; as, bed key or bedkey; bed wrench or bedwrench; bedchamber; bedmaker, etc.

    Bed of justice (French Hist.), the throne (F. lit bed) occupied by the king when sitting in one of his parliaments (judicial courts); hence, a session of a refractory parliament, at which the king was present for the purpose of causing his decrees to be registered. -- To be brought to bed, to be delivered of a child; -- often followed by of; as, to be brought to bed of a son. -- To make a bed, to prepare a bed; to arrange or put in order a bed and its bedding. -- From bed and board (Law), a phrase applied to a separation by partial divorce of man and wife, without dissolving the bonds of matrimony. If such a divorce (now commonly called a judicial separation) be granted at the instance of the wife, she may have alimony.