Meaning & use
couch surf
Last updated
Meanings
verbintransitive
To stay for a short time in other people's homes, usually sleeping on a couch, without paying.
Grammar: No object: she couch surfs across Europe.
Patterns
- couch surf in a place
- couch surf with someone
We couch surfed across Spain to save money.
He couch surfs with friends between jobs.
Many young travelers couch surf in big cities.
verbintransitive
To stay temporarily with friends or family because you have no home of your own.
Grammar: No object; often implies a hard situation.
Patterns
- couch surf at someone's house
After losing his apartment, he couch surfed for months.
She couch surfed at her cousins' homes while looking for work.
Students sometimes couch surf during housing shortages.
Word forms
| third person singular | couch surfs |
|---|---|
| past tense | couch surfed |
| past participle | couch surfed |
| -ing form | couch surfing |
Common combinations
- couch surf around
- He couch surfed around Asia.
- couch surf with friends
- She couch surfs with friends.
- couch surf for free
- You can couch surf for free.
- couch surf across
- They couch surfed across the country.
Synonyms and how they differ
- crash
- Crash is slang for sleeping somewhere for one night, whereas couch surf covers repeated stays.
- stay over
- Stay over is neutral and short term, with no sense of moving from home to home.
- sponge off
- Sponge off is negative and implies taking advantage of hosts.
- lodge
- Lodge is more formal and suggests renting a room.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: couch surf or couch potato?
couch surf vs couch potato
A couch potato is a lazy person who sits watching TV, not a traveler.
Practice
To save money on his trip, Ben decided to ______ with local hosts instead of booking hotels.
Choose one answer.
Couch surf means staying with hosts for free. The others do not describe staying with hosts.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “couch surf”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.