Bed n.
 1. An article of furniture to sleep or take rest in or on; a couch. Specifically: A sack or mattress, filled with some soft material, in distinction from the bedstead on which it is placed (as, a feather bed), or this with the bedclothes added. In a general sense, any thing or place used for sleeping or reclining on or in, as a quantity of hay, straw, leaves, or twigs.
    And made for him [a horse] a leafy bed.   --Byron.
    I wash, wring, brew, bake, . . . make the beds.   --Shak.
    In bed he slept not for my urging it.   --Shak.
 2. (Used as the symbol of matrimony) Marriage.
    George, the eldest son of his second bed.   --Clarendon.
 3. A plat or level piece of ground in a garden, usually a little raised above the adjoining ground. “Beds of hyacinth and roses.”
 4. A mass or heap of anything arranged like a bed; as, a bed of ashes or coals.
 5. The bottom of a watercourse, or of any body of water; as, the bed of a river.
    So sinks the daystar in the ocean bed.   --Milton.
 6. Geol. A layer or seam, or a horizontal stratum between layers; as, a bed of coal, iron, etc.
 7. Gun. See Gun carriage, and Mortar bed.
 8. Masonry (a) The horizontal surface of a building stone; as, the upper and lower beds. (b) A course of stone or brick in a wall. (c) The place or material in which a block or brick is laid. (d) The lower surface of a brick, slate, or tile.
 9. Mech. The foundation or the more solid and fixed part or framing of a machine; or a part on which something is laid or supported; as, the bed of an engine.
 10. The superficial earthwork, or ballast, of a railroad.
 11. Printing The flat part of the press, on which the form is laid.
 Note: ☞ Bed is much used adjectively or in combination; as, bed key or bedkey; bed wrench or bedwrench; bedchamber; bedmaker, etc.
 Bed of justice French Hist., the throne (F. lit bed) occupied by the king when sitting in one of his parliaments (judicial courts); hence, a session of a refractory parliament, at which the king was present for the purpose of causing his decrees to be registered.
 To be brought to bed, to be delivered of a child; -- often followed by of; as, to be brought to bed of a son.
 To make a bed, to prepare a bed; to arrange or put in order a bed and its bedding.
 From bed and board Law, a phrase applied to a separation by partial divorce of man and wife, without dissolving the bonds of matrimony. If such a divorce (now commonly called a judicial separation) be granted at the instance of the wife, she may have alimony.