couch potato
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Meaning · English
A lazy person.
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
All of you couch potatoes who were inspired by the Olympics to take more exercise in future, what about having a bash at the New York Marathon and raising funds for charity as well?
There is no ‘ mass audience’ of uncritical couch potatoes ready to be fobbed off with any old rubbish.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Imported from Wikipedia “English-language idioms” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-29), pending review. Figurative class: Euphemism (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).
Common questions
What does “couch potato” mean?
A lazy person.
Is “couch potato” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.