Chesterfield, Sofa, Couch, Settee
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Dave Ross:
April 15th, 2009 at 1:09 am
Could duo or dufoo be related to duvet?
Aife N.:
October 19th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
“Dufo” might just be a misspelling of duvet. Interestingly, when I Googled this, Dufo means both (somehow) a dufus and a person that does amazing things for their friends/family. I wouldn’t take this too seriously-Urban Dictionary (where I got this from) was the first result; then this page, then several sites offering to find “Dufo” or to make “Dufo”.
Sofas:
July 15th, 2011 at 6:09 am
Oh it’s odd that you mention this – I’ve just purchased a top quality sofa set for my lounge and have to say I absolutely love it! It’s a stunning 3 item set, in brown floral design. Just felt the urge to share that :)
Carole Bender-Resnick:
December 20th, 2011 at 6:44 pm
In Canada, we call a couch a chesterfield.
Chester Field:
March 16th, 2012 at 10:25 pm
No no no. In Canada we do not call a couch a chesterfield. In Canada OLD PEOPLE call it a chesterfield!! :)
Radamus:
April 4th, 2012 at 11:57 pm
I agree with the above chesterfield comment; yes, my nana used to say chesterfield, but I generally say couch.. even sofa is pretty rare nowadays.
The Canadian military has an affection for the word settee, which generally was observed to be an armless couch.
Ross:
April 6th, 2012 at 7:37 pm
I do not like the word couch and sofa is still used. Any furniture store has signs saying sofa and chair, not couch and chair. And specialty stores are not called Couchland but Sofaland. But I think terminology has to do with where in North America you live. I looked up this site because I heard a Bare Naked Ladies song today and was reminded that they use the word chesterfield.
Kelley Wright:
April 24th, 2012 at 6:19 am
My father used to call the couch something that sounded like dovino or davino, almost like domino. he was born in 1921 in the Midwest. I have never heard this word used by anyone else. Might be related to the above question.
Shannon:
March 8th, 2013 at 4:13 pm
I have family who grew up in Detroit in the 1910’s-60’s. According to them, the dufo was a couch with a “hide-a-bed”. The bed would fold, or “do fold”, into a couch. That’s how it was explained to me.
Henry:
May 18th, 2013 at 12:32 am
Quoting from the text above: ‘The term “couch” itself comes from the French “coucher,” meaning “to lay in place,” reflecting the original sense of a couch as a place for sleeping, not just sitting.’
Is it a transitive or intransitive verb? Is to “to lay” something or “to lie” down?
chris:
March 3rd, 2014 at 2:31 am
fascinating…. dufo and especially dufoo especially ring a little French to me… similar to the surname Dufour (when pronounced with a French accent). Chesterfield is a surname and after all Detroit is the French word for straight. If anybody has the time and more ambition than I, perhaps some research into old retailers of furniture in Detroit might turn up something like “Dufour’s Emporium of Fine Settees” 1889-1912….. anyway, words are fun!!
Robert Crawford:
September 14th, 2014 at 9:18 pm
In the rural Pacific Northwest, I grew up hearing the word “davino”–emphasis on the first syllable–used interchangeably with “sofa” and “couch.” Heard “Davenport” now and then, but never had the sense that “davino” was an abbreviation or slang term for the proper name.
Angela:
December 2nd, 2014 at 3:17 am
I’m not old and I refer to a couch as a chesterfield. Some people may simply becoming Americanized from too much media! So yes in Canada we use the word chesterfield.
Susan Page:
December 14th, 2014 at 8:11 am
Growing up in North Eastern Ohio, many of our grandparents refered to the sofa as a davenport. They were more likely to refer to it as such if it was in the formal living room.
Apparently the name comes from the A H Davenport Furniture Co. Who knows how it came only to refer to the sofa / couch. You can find it used in such a manner in literature as far back as the 1890’s, then in early american radio programs. It’s common use seems to have died out after the war except amongst our grandparents, few of whom I imagine remain living.
Amelia Weston:
January 24th, 2015 at 5:15 am
Chesterfield sofa originated in the 17th century in the city of Chesterfield. This sofa is also known as the king of sofas and has a few distinctive features: its rolled arms, the back and arms of the same height, diamond tufting etc. You can get more info from http://ahernsfurniture.co.uk/
Michael:
April 26th, 2015 at 9:48 pm
Yes in Canada we use Chesterfield as well as couch. Sofa is used but it isn’t used nearly as much as couch. People whose families came from England would be the main source of “chesterfield” and it is the term I use 90% of the time, followed by couch. I rarely use any other term for this piece of furniture. A young Australian on a work holiday in Toronto didn’t know what a chesterfield was so it is probably known best in England and English speaking Canada
Kang Irwan:
May 25th, 2015 at 6:03 am
Any furniture store has signs saying sofa and chair, not couch and chair. And specialty stores are not called Couchland but Sofaland.They were more likely to refer to it as such if it was in the formal living room
Andrew:
July 2nd, 2015 at 10:11 am
I lived in BC for 20 years and never heard anyone use the word Chesterfield, ever. Perhaps it’s an Ontario thing?
CathyVergison:
July 25th, 2015 at 1:37 am
Chesterfield is definitely an Ontario thing
Gerald:
August 9th, 2015 at 3:13 pm
My Grandmother had a davenport and a chesterfield with buttons with high back and arms. I use the term chesterfield today
Jackie:
November 11th, 2015 at 3:30 pm
Grew up in Louisiana. We called our sofa a “deux fold” whether it folded into a bed or not. There was no other word that I can remember using.
Tapeworm_Terry:
January 22nd, 2016 at 10:00 am
I’m from Ontario only ever heard my Grandma say Chesterfield.
Murray Hayes:
February 21st, 2016 at 8:41 pm
After reading all the comments here, I can only assume that the terms couch, sofa and setee are personal choices for the same thing; and that Davenport and Chesterfield are brand names.
Bill:
April 4th, 2016 at 4:02 pm
I was brought up in London uk we always called what we had a chesterfield. The term sofa and settee also couch were used. couch and settee were probably for lying on, sofa and chesterfield for 3 or 4 people to sit.
Harley Shelley:
April 21st, 2016 at 11:56 am
I grew up in Portland, Oregon in the 1930s and I only heard a davenport called a davenport.In other areas occasionally heard it called a sofa.
Fliss:
July 13th, 2016 at 12:18 pm
Well, I call it a settee…….which I confess I DID hope might be a nice upmarket Anglo-Indian word……no such luck…..the humblest of the bunch. My dog calls it BED.
Jeanne C:
August 24th, 2016 at 10:45 am
Thank you. I was wondering about the difference between a couch & a sofa. I do a lot of charting & sofa is quicker but i did wonder if i was using it correctly.
Lynne:
November 27th, 2016 at 9:45 am
Could she possibly have been saying ‘davino’. I used to hear that one a lot.
Vancouverite:
February 22nd, 2017 at 12:33 pm
I grew up in YVR and we called the sofa a chesterfield. I also heard settee once in a while. Now though we use both sofa and couch. It would be nice to try to bring back Canadianisms like chesterfield.
Gillian Scobie:
April 11th, 2017 at 8:17 am
That would be “divan.” Which is like a couch because it’s long, but it has no arms on it, only a headrest.
Wroots:
June 16th, 2017 at 9:05 pm
Aife N – And I thought Canada was supposed to be bilingual! Duvet means “down” in French, and that is what is used for stuffing the higher quality duvets. Cheaper duvets are stuffed with feathers, and the cheapest of all are stuffed with synthetic fibres. Duvets are now the most common form of bed covering, especially in northern Europe. They became popular throughout the world in the late 20th century. In Britain, a duvet was originally called a continental quilt.
Wroots:
June 16th, 2017 at 10:05 pm
There are many opinions on the origin of the word “chesterfield” as a description of the item we now know as such. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the use of the word chesterfield was already used in England in the 1800’s to describe a leather couch.
It is believed that Lord Phillip Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773), commissioned the first leather chesterfield settee with its distinctive deep buttoned, quilted leather upholstery and low seat base. Aside from being a much-admired politician and writer, patron of Voltaire, the Earl was a known trendsetter. Apparently the Earl requested a local craftsman to construct a piece of furniture that would allow a gentleman to sit upright in the utmost of comfort allowing sitting without wrinkling the garment. This was the original purpose of the chesterfield sofa with its characteristic deep buttoned upholstery, rolled arms, equal back and arm height and nail head trim.
The original Chesterfield settees did not recline because the purpose of the settee was to allow a gentleman to sit upright. In other words, it wasn’t made for lounging.
Cathy Vergison – Chesterfields are most definitely not an “Ontario thing” at all. They are and always have been English.
Chesterfields are still made in Manchester today and are very high quality and very expensive.
JPHolm:
June 30th, 2017 at 1:59 pm
We called them chesterfields in BC where I grew up. These days, we tend to call them all 3 names.
http://www.distinctivechesterfields.com/the-history-of-the-chesterfield-sofa.html
Eileen June Burke:
March 15th, 2018 at 9:54 am
Is m British now living in Canada. I have only ever heard the term Settee used in my family. I have heard the term Chesterfield used by my late mother in law, but never in Britain.
Kevin Kingrey:
March 23rd, 2018 at 9:44 pm
I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, in several towns all over both Oregon (Orygun) and Washington (Warsh-ington). I distinctly remember the name “Daveno” being spoken when hosts were pointing house guests towards the sofa. This wasn’t just a one-off, I can remember it in different houses and different towns through the 60’s and 70’s, but not much after that. Pretty sure this is a regional derivation of “Divan”, and Chicago could have the same thing going on, just slightly doofier sounding.
Kevin Kingrey:
March 23rd, 2018 at 9:52 pm
Duex fold; Dufo. That totally makes sense.
A lot of people migrated up route 61 from the delta, and I’m sure they packed their colloquialisms right alongside their Duex folds.
Kevin Kingrey:
March 23rd, 2018 at 9:56 pm
Yep, Daveno was definitely a PNW thing.
It may have even caught on at my house for a time when I was a kid, but we pretty much called it Davenport, Divan, Couch, Sofa, all the above.
Saxon:
May 16th, 2018 at 7:03 pm
I don’t think this is an americanization thing as I am from AB and just discovered the word chesterfield and no one i know (including parents) have ever heard of the term
Patricia:
July 3rd, 2018 at 12:03 pm
I remember when I was growing up in the Pacific Northwest my grandmother who had come from upstate New York, had always called their couch a davenport, but my parents called their’s a Devan or a sofa.
When I purchased my set it was labled as a “sofa, loveseat and chair recliner!”
Kaitlin:
September 17th, 2019 at 6:37 pm
This is an old thread, so mainly this comment is for the admin re the possibility of “davino” and a miss pronounced word…. my ex thought windshield wiper fluid was literally: “wishywashy fluid” and as a kid I thought the expression was “donned donned me”… I would’ve lived that way if I hadn’t finally one day turned to my father and said: what’s a “donned”? (…dawned on me…)