daybed

Daybed is a transparent English compound — a bed for daytime use. The word appeared in the sixteenth century to describe a piece of furniture that looked like a bed but was placed in a sitting room or parlor rather than a bedroom. Its existence was an acknowledgment that people sometimes needed to lie down when they were supposed to be upright and productive. The furniture permitted what manners did not.

The Elizabethan daybed was a long, narrow couch with a slanted back at one end, designed for reclining rather than sleeping. Shakespeare mentions the daybed in Richard III (1593): 'Go thou to Richard, and good angels guard thee! / Go thou to Richard; and good angels tend thee!' — though the stage direction places the ghost scene near a daybed. The furniture existed in the most literary and theatrical households of the era.

The Victorian daybed — or 'fainting couch' — had a cultural function beyond rest. Victorian women wearing tight corsets in overheated drawing rooms sometimes fainted (or were expected to faint), and the fainting couch provided a place to recover. The daybed was medical furniture disguised as decorative furniture, solving a health problem caused by fashion.

The modern daybed is a dual-purpose piece: a couch by day, a guest bed by night. IKEA's HEMNES daybed is one of its best-selling items. The word has lost its implication of aristocratic leisure or Victorian fragility. A daybed is now practical furniture for small apartments. The confession embedded in the word — that daytime sleep is needed — is no longer embarrassing.