1. a. A piece of furniture for reclining and sleeping, typically consisting of a flat, rectangular frame and a mattress resting on springs. b. A bedstead. c. A mattress.

2. a. A place where one may sleep; lodging: found bed and board at an inn. b. Accommodations for a single person at a hospital or institution: a maternity ward with 30 beds.

3. A time at which one goes to sleep: drank milk before bed.

4. A place for lovemaking.

5. A marital relationship with its rights and intimacies.

6. a. A small plot of cultivated or planted land: a flower bed. b. An underwater or intertidal area in which a particular organism is established in large numbers: a clam bed; an oyster bed.

7. The bottom of a body of water, such as a stream.

8. A supporting, underlying, or securing part, especially: a. A layer of food surmounted by another kind of food: tomatoes on a bed of lettuce. b. A foundation of crushed rock or a similar substance for a road or railroad; a roadbed. c. A layer of mortar upon which stones or bricks are laid.

9. Printing. The heavy table of a printing press in which the type form is placed.

10. The part of a truck, trailer, or freight car designed to carry loads.

11. Geology. a. A rock mass of large horizontal extent bounded, especially above, by physically different material. b. A deposit, as of ore, parallel to local stratification.

12. A heap of material: a bed of wood chips.

1. To furnish with a bed or sleeping quarters: We bedded our guests down in the study.

2. To put or send to bed.

3. To have sexual relations with.

4. To plant in a prepared plot of soil.

5. To lay flat or arrange in layers.

6. a. To embed. b. To establish; base.

1. To go to bed.

2. Geology. To form layers or strata.