mat·tress

(măt′rĭs)

a. A usually rectangular pad of heavy cloth filled with soft material or an arrangement of coiled springs, used as or on a bed.

b. An airtight inflatable pad used as or on a bed or as a cushion.

2. A closely woven mat of brush and poles used to protect an embankment, a dike, or a dam from erosion.

[Middle English materas, mattresse, from Old French materas, from Old Italian materasso and from Medieval Latin matracium, both from Arabic maṭraḥ, place where something is thrown, mat, cushion, from ṭaraḥa, to throw; see ṭrḥ in Semitic roots.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

mattress

(ˈmætrɪs)

1. (Furniture) a large flat pad with a strong cover, filled with straw, foam rubber, etc, and often incorporating coiled springs, used as a bed or as part of a bed

2. (Civil Engineering) Also called: Dutch mattress a woven mat of brushwood, poles, etc, used to protect an embankment, dyke, etc, from scour

3. (Building) a concrete or steel raft or slab used as a foundation or footing. Sometimes shortened to: mat

4. (Building) a network of reinforcing rods or expanded metal sheeting, used in reinforced concrete

5. (Civil Engineering) civil engineering another name for blinding³

[C13: via Old French from Italian materasso, from Arabic almatrah place where something is thrown]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

mat•tress

(ˈmæ trɪs)

n.

1. a large pad used as or on a bed and consisting of a cloth case filled with straw, cotton, foam rubber, or similar supporting material.

2. air mattress.

3. a mat woven of brush, poles, or similar material, used to prevent erosion of dikes, jetties, etc.

4. a layer of any material used to cushion or protect.

[1250–1300; Middle English materas < Old French < Italian materasso < Arabic maṭraḥ mat, cushion]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

mattress - a large thick pad filled with resilient material and often incorporating coiled springs, used as a bed or part of a bed

air mattress - a mattress that can be stored flat and inflated for use

bed - a piece of furniture that provides a place to sleep; "he sat on the edge of the bed"; "the room had only a bed and chair"

feather bed, featherbed - a mattress stuffed with feathers

futon - mattress consisting of a pad of cotton batting that is used for sleeping on the floor or on a raised frame

pad - a flat mass of soft material used for protection, stuffing, or comfort

paillasse, palliasse - mattress consisting of a thin pad filled with straw or sawdust

pallet - a mattress filled with straw or a pad made of quilts; used as a bed

spring mattress - a mattress containing springs in a rigid frame

tick - a light mattress

Translations

حَشِيَةٌفراشفِراش

matrace

madras

Matratze

στρώμα

colchón

برخوابهتشكدوشك

patja

matelas

madrac

matracágybetét

matras

dÿna

materasso materasso a molle

マットレス

매트리스

matracas

matracis

matrac

vzmetnicažimnica

madrass

ที่นอน

döşek şilte yatak

đệm

床垫

mattress

[ˈmætrɪs] N → colchón m

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

mattress

[ˈmætrəs] n → matelas m

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

mattress

n → Matratze f

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

mattress

[ˈmætrɪs] n → materasso

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

mattress

(ˈmӕtris) noun

a thick, firm layer of padding, covered in cloth etc, for lying on, usually as part of a bed.

mattress

→ حَشِيَةٌ matrace madras Matratze στρώμα colchón patja matelas madrac materasso マットレス 매트리스 matras madrass materac colchão матрац madrass ที่นอน yatak đệm 床垫

mattress

n. colchón.

mattress

n colchón m

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

I now marvel at the patience of the students while sleeping upon the floor while waiting for some kind of a bedstead to be constructed, or at their sleeping without any kind of a mattress while waiting for something that looked like a mattress to be made.

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Under the mattress there was nothing but the metal netting, which could not conceal anything or anybody.

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The bedrooms have no locks on the doors, no furniture but a single chair in each, and a bedstead without bedding--just a mattress. Even these meager accommodations you cannot be sure that you will have in monopoly; you must take your chance of being stowed in with a lot of others.

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My jailers, however, had been kind enough to leave me a lantern, which, set upon the ground (like my mattress), would afford a warning, if not a protection, against the worst; unless I slept; and as yet I had not lain down.

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Each one of the occupants furnished his own accommodations--that is, a mattress and some bedding.

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At the end of a fairly hard day's work it was certainly something of an effort to clear one's room, to pull the mattress off one's bed, and lay it on the floor, to fill a pitcher with cold coffee, and to sweep a long table clear for plates and cups and saucers, with pyramids of little pink biscuits between them; but when these alterations were effected, Mary felt a lightness of spirit come to her, as if she had put off the stout stuff of her working hours and slipped over her entire being some vesture of thin, bright silk.

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Here it is!"--and Petritsky pulled a letter out from under the mattress, where he had hidden it.

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The fact is, that there was considerable difficulty in inducing Oliver to take upon himself the office of respiration,--a troublesome practice, but one which custom has rendered necessary to our easy existence; and for some time he lay gasping on a little flock mattress, rather unequally poised between this world and the next: the balance being decidedly in favour of the latter.

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In the meanwhile, John de Witt, whom we left climbing the stairs, after the conversation with the jailer Gryphus and his daughter Rosa, had reached the door of the cell, where on a mattress his brother Cornelius was resting, after having undergone the preparatory degrees of the torture.

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How luxurious it felt to rest thus in a strange, quaint bed, with its sweet country odor of laurel lingering about the sheets and mattress! She stretched her strong limbs that ached a little.

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We put old Redruth in the gallery between the cabin and the forecastle, with three or four loaded muskets and a mattress for protection.

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Then she put twenty mattresses on top of the pea, and twenty eider-down quilts on the top of the mattresses.

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