DIVAN (dih-VAWN)
A
long backless sofa
Common
clues: Backless
sofa; Parlor piece; Armless couch; Cushioned piece of furniture;
Place to recline
Crossword
puzzle frequency:
2 times a year
Frequency
in English language:
29610 / 86800
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A
divan (Turkish divan, originally from Persian devan) is a piece
of couch-like sitting furniture; or in the UK, a box-spring based
bed.
Primarily,
in the Middle East (especially the Ottoman Empire), a divan was a
long seat formed of a mattress laid against the side of the room,
upon the floor, or upon a raised structure or frame, with
cushions to lean against.
Divans
received this name because they were generally found along the
walls in Middle Eastern council chambers of a bureau called divan
or diwan (from Persian, meaning a government council or office,
from the bundles of papers they processed, and next their council
chambers). Divans are a common feature of the liwan, a long
vaulted narrow room in Levantine homes. The sofa/couch sense was
taken into English in 1702.
The
divan in this sense has been commonly known in Europe since about
the middle of the 18th century. It was fashionable, roughly from
1820 to 1850, wherever the romantic movement in literature
penetrated. All the boudoirs of that generation were garnished
with divans. They even spread to coffee-houses, which were
sometimes known as divans or Turkish divans, and a cigar divan
remains a familiar expression.
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Divan".
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