couch potato

Couch potato is a slang term for a person who spends a lot of time sitting on the couch watching TV or otherwise lazily lounging and loafing around.

Couch potato is often used in a mildly negative way to criticize a person for spending too much time doing this instead of doing more productive activities. But it can also be used in a more neutral way. For example, someone might say they like to relax by spending the weekend as a couch potato.

Example: You kids should go outside and play once in a while instead of spending the whole summer watching TV and being couch potatoes!

Couch potato first came into use as a slang term around 1980. In the ’80s, cartoonist Robert Armstrong trademarked the term and used it in cartoons that featured a potato character sitting on a sofa watching TV. Armstrong said he first heard it from his friend Tom Iacino, who said that it was just a simple joke he used to tease his friends who watched a lot of TV.

Couch potato can be used as a general term for a lazy person, but it usually refers to a person who literally slouches on the couch all day, especially to watch the TV. The term always implies that it’s not time well spent. Someone who sat on the couch all day reading would not be called a couch potato. It’s usually used as a mild term of disapproval, especially when suggesting that someone get up and go do something else. Since the word came into widespread use, many more ways of loafing around have been introduced, including, of course, sitting in front of a computer. Before laptops were popular, people who sat in front of their computer all day were occasionally called mouse potatoes (a pun on couch potato and mouse as in a computer mouse), but the term didn’t catch on like couch potato did.

What are some other forms related to couch potato?

• couch potatoes (plural)

What are some synonyms for couch potato?

• loafer
• layabout

What are some words that share a root or word element with couch potato? 

• couch
• potato
• couch-surf
• hot potato
• mouse potato

What are some words that often get used in discussing couch potato?

• television
• sofa
• lazy
• loaf
• leisure

Couch potato is typically used negatively, but usually in a mild way that’s also intended to be a bit funny. It almost always implies that someone is wasting time.

I have all these plans to do school work then when I get home I turn the tv on and turn into a couch potato instead.

— kol (@KolbiLynn_) April 19, 2016

I love that you can watch TV while you iron (yesterday it was Jane Eyre) and not feel like a couch potato.

— Patricia Heaton (@PatriciaHeaton) July 16, 2013

i’ve spent an hour playing just dance and i love tricking my lazy couch potato brain into exercise via video games

— perko @ 🍑 time (@fozfens) March 9, 2019

Which of the following terms best describes what a couch potato does?

A. loaf around
B. laze about
C. lounge
D. all of the above