sofa

See also: Sofa, sofá, sofà, sófa, and sofā

Contents

English

A firm sofa

A soft sofa

A modern-style sofa

Etymology

Borrowed from French sofa, ultimately from Arabic صُفَّة‎ (ṣuffa, “a long seat made of stone or brick”), from Aramaic צפא‎ (ṣipā’, “mat”). The word may have entered European languages via Turkish or through the Moorish occupation of Iberia.

Pronunciation

• (General American) enPR: sō'fə, IPA^(key): /ˈsoʊfə/
• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: sō'fə, IPA^(key): /ˈsəʊfə/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊfə

Noun

sofa (plural sofas)

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

Synonyms

• (furniture): couch, lounge, divan, settee

Descendants

• Assamese: চোফা (süpha)
• Burmese: ဆိုဖာ (hcuihpa)
• Chinese:
  • Mandarin: 沙發／沙发 (shāfā)
    • Lü: ᦌᦱᧈᦝᦱᧉ (saa¹faa²)
  • Cantonese: 梳化 (so1 faa3-2)
• Hindi: सोफ़ा (sofā)
• Japanese: ソファ (sofa)
• Korean: 소파 (sopa)
• Thai: โซฟา (soo-faa)

Translations

upholstered seat

• Albanian: divan (sq) m, kanape (sq) f
• Arabic: أَرِيكَة‎ f (ʾarīka), كَنَبَة‎ f (kanaba), تَخْت‎ f (taḵt), دِيوَان‎ m (dīwān)

  Egyptian Arabic: كنبة‎ f (kanaba)

  Hijazi Arabic: كنبة‎ f (kanaba)

  Iraqi Arabic: قنفة‎ (qánafa)

• Armenian: բազմոց (hy) (bazmocʿ), թախտ (hy) (tʿaxt)
• Assamese: চোফা (süpha)
• Asturian: sofá m
• Azerbaijani: divan (az)
• Belarusian: кана́па f (kanápa), сафа́ f (safá)
• Bengali: সোফা (sopha)
• Bulgarian: дива́н (bg) m (diván)
• Burmese: ဆိုဖာ (my) (hcuihpa)
• Catalan: sofà (ca) m
• Central Dusun: sofa
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 梳化 (yue) (so¹ faa^3-2)

  Mandarin: 沙發 (zh), 沙发 (zh) (shāfā)

  Min Nan: 膨椅 (zh-min-nan) (phòng-í)

• Crimean Tatar: divan
• Czech: pohovka f, gauč (cs) m, sofa (cs) f, divan (cs) m
• Danish: sofa (da)
• Dutch: bank (nl) m, f, zetel (nl) m, sofa (nl) m
• Erzya: чевтезем (čevtezem)
• Esperanto: sofo, kanapo
• Estonian: sohva
• Finnish: sohva (fi)
• French: canapé (fr) m, sofa (fr) m
• Galician: sofá m
• Georgian: ტახტი (ṭaxṭi)
• German: Sofa (de) n, Couch (de) f
• Greek: καναπές (el) m (kanapés)
• Hebrew: סַפָּה‎ (he) f (sapa)
• Hindi: सोफ़ा m (sofā)
• Hungarian: dívány (hu), kanapé (hu)
• Icelandic: sófi (is) m
• Indonesian: sofa (id), dipan (id)
• Interlingua: sofa
• Italian: divano (it) m, sofà (it) m
• Japanese: ソファー (ja) (sofā), ソファ (ja) (sofa), 長椅子 (ながいす, nagaisu), カウチ (kauchi)
• Kazakh: диван (dïvan)
• Khmer: អាសន្ទិ (km) (ʔaasɑntiʔ)
• Korean: 소파 (ko) (sopa), 카우치 (kauchi), 쇼파 (syopa)

• Kurdish: qenepe (ku)
• Kyrgyz: диван (ky) (divan)
• Lao: ຊໍ່ຟ້າ (sǭ fā), ເກົ້າອີ້ຍາວ (kao ’ī nyāo), ເກົ້າອີ້ນອນ (kao ’ī nǭn)
• Latvian: dīvāns m, sofa f
• Lithuanian: sofa (lt) f, kanapa (lt) f
• Macedonian: софа f (sofa), диван m (divan), кауч m (kauč), канабе n (kanabe)
• Malay: sofa
• Maori: hōpa
• Mongolian: буйдан (mn) (bujdan)
• Norman: jontchéthe f (Jersey), sofa m (Jersey, Guernsey)
• Northern Sami: suffá
• Norwegian: sofa (no)
• Pashto: please add this translation if you can
• Persian: کاناپه‎ (fa) (kânâpe), تخت‎ (fa) (taxt), نیمکت‎ (fa) (nimkat)
• Plautdietsch: Soofa n
• Polish: kanapa (pl) f, sofa (pl) f
• Portuguese: sofá (pt) m
• Romanian: canapea (ro) f, canapele f pl, sofa (ro) f
• Russian: софа́ (ru) f (sofá), дива́н (ru) m (diván), куше́тка (ru) f (kušétka), тахта́ (ru) f (taxtá), канапе́ (ru) n (kanapɛ́)
• Scottish Gaelic: langasaid f, suaineachan m, sunnag f
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: лежај m, диван m, софа f

  Roman: ležaj (sh) m, divan (sh) m, sofa (sh) f

• Sinhalese: සෝෆා (sōfā)
• Slovak: pohovka f, diván m, sofa f
• Slovene: kavč m, zofa f
• Spanish: sofá (es) m
• Swedish: soffa (sv) c
• Sylheti: ꠍꠥꠚꠣ (sufa)
• Tagalog: sopa
• Tajik: кат (tg) (kat), диван (divan), нимкат (nimkat)
• Tatar: диван (diwan)
• Thai: โซฟา (soo-faa)
• Tibetan: རྐུབ་ཀྱག་སོ་ཕྰ (rkub kyag so ph'a)
• Turkish: kanepe (tr)
• Turkmen: diwan
• Ukrainian: софа́ f (sofá), дива́н (uk) m (dyván)
• Urdu: صوفہ‎ m (sofā)
• Uyghur: دىۋان‎ (diwan), سافا‎ (safa)
• Uzbek: divan (uz), sofa (uz), kat (uz)
• Vietnamese: xô-pha, ghế xô-pha, đi văng
• Welsh: soffa (cy) f, glwth m, glythau m pl
• Yiddish: סאָפֿע‎ f (sofe)

See also

• love seat

References

• "sofa, n.", in the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Anagrams

• OFAs, as of, oafs

---

Danish

Noun

sofa c (singular definite sofaen, plural indefinite sofaer)

1. sofa, couch, divan, settee

Inflection

Declension of sofa

common gender	Singular		Plural
	indefinite	definite	indefinite	definite
nominative	sofa	sofaen	sofaer	sofaerne
genitive	sofas	sofaens	sofaers	sofaernes

---

French

sofa

Etymology

Ultimately from Arabic صُفَّة‎ (ṣuffa, “a long seat made of stone or brick”), from Aramaic צפא‎ (ṣipā’, “mat”). The word may have entered French via Turkish sofa.

Note casually that Arabic itself uses كَنَبة‎ (kanaba) for “sofa”, from French canapé.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /so.fa/
• Rhymes: -a
• Homophone: sofas

Noun

sofa m (plural sofas)

1. couch; sofa

Synonyms

• (couch): canapé

Further reading

• “sofa” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

---

Icelandic

Etymology

From Old Norse sofa, from Proto-Germanic *swefaną.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɔːva/
• Rhymes: -ɔːva

Verb

sofa (strong verb, third-person singular past indicative svaf, third-person plural past indicative sváfum, supine sofið)

1. (intransitive) to sleep

   Ekki vekja hana, hún er sofandi.

   Don't wake her up, she's sleeping.

Conjugation

This verb needs an inflection-table template.

Derived terms

• fara að sofa (“to go to bed”)
• sofa hjá (“to sleep with, to have sex with”)
• sofa laust (“to sleep lightly”)
• sofandi (“sleeping”)
• sofa yfir sig (“to oversleep”)

 

Related terms

• sofna
• syfja

---

Interlingua

Noun

sofa (plural sofas)

1. (item of furniture) sofa

---

Japanese

Romanization

sofa

1. Rōmaji transcription of ソファ

---

Norman

Etymology

Borrowed from English sofa.

Noun

sofa m (plural sofas)

1. (Jersey, Guernsey) sofa

Synonyms

• jontchéthe

---

Norwegian Bokmål

Noun

sofa m (definite singular sofaen, indefinite plural sofaer, definite plural sofaene)

1. sofa, couch

References

• “sofa” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

---

Norwegian Nynorsk

Noun

sofa m (definite singular sofaen, indefinite plural sofaer or sofaar, definite plural sofaene or sofaane)

1. a sofa or couch

References

• “sofa” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

---

Serbo-Croatian

Noun

sòfa f (Cyrillic spelling со̀фа)

1. (Serbia) sofa

Declension

Declension of sofa

	singular	plural
nominative	sofa	sofe
genitive	sofe	sofa
dative	sofi	sofama
accusative	sofu	sofe
vocative	sofo	sofe
locative	sofi	sofama
instrumental	sofom	sofama

---

Veps

Etymology

Borrowed from Russian софа́ (sofá).

Noun

sofa

1. sofa

Inflection

Inflection of sofa
nominative sing.	sofa
genitive sing.	sofan
partitive sing.	sofad
partitive plur.	sofid
	singular	plural
nominative	sofa	sofad
accusative	sofan	sofad
genitive	sofan	sofiden
partitive	sofad	sofid
essive-instructive	sofan	sofin
translative	sofaks	sofikš
inessive	sofas	sofiš
elative	sofaspäi	sofišpäi
illative	?	sofihe
adessive	sofal	sofil
ablative	sofalpäi	sofilpäi
allative	sofale	sofile
abessive	sofata	sofita
comitative	sofanke	sofidenke
prolative	sofadme	sofidme
approximative I	sofanno	sofidenno
approximative II	sofannoks	sofidennoks
egressive	sofannopäi	sofidennopäi
terminative I	?	sofihesai
terminative II	sofalesai	sofilesai
terminative III	sofassai	—
additive I	?	sofihepäi
additive II	sofalepäi	sofilepäi

References

• Zajceva, N. G.; Mullonen, M. I. (2007), “тахта”, in Uz’ venä-vepsläine vajehnik / Novyj russko-vepsskij slovarʹ [New Russian–Veps Dictionary], Petrozavodsk: Periodika