davenport
a writing desk
TRANSLATION
Schreibpult (britisch, kleines Möbel mit schräger Schreibfläche); Sofa (nordamerikanisch, manchmal als Schlafsofa)
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
“As the sofas became literal household names, the term ‘DAVENPORT’ expanded to mean both sofa and couch, rather than simply a way to describe a sofa that is built for lounging, relaxing, and sleeping.”
Heather Bien — Apartment Therapy (14 May 2025)
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The discovery of a hand-drawn historical map occurred as an artisan was restoring a heavily weathered oak DAVENPORT desk acquired from a regional estate sale.”
OrVeb (19 September 2025)
Did you
know?
davenport
noun; British (desk); North American (sofa)
- a tall narrow desk with a sloping writing surface and drawers at the side
- a compact desk with deep drawers on one side and dummy drawer fronts on the other
- a large upholstered sofa, often one that converts into a bed
Collins English Dictionary, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Merriam-Webster
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WORD ORIGIN
Both senses come from the surname Davenport, recorded from the 12th century and taken from a place in Cheshire.
The desk came first. Merriam-Webster dates the word to 1853, but the object is older. The story is that the Lancaster cabinetmakers Gillows made one for a Captain Davenport in the 1790s. The earliest surviving Gillows drawing of a davenport dates from 1816, and who the captain actually was remains unclear.
The sofa sense is American, first recorded in 1897. It is usually traced to A.H. Davenport and Company of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Nobody has found a document that proves the link, but “Davenport sofas” do appear in newspaper advertisements of the 1890s.
So one surname ended up naming two unrelated pieces of furniture, on opposite sides of the Atlantic, roughly half a century apart.
Helga & Paul Smith
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SYNONYM
DESK: bureau, escritoire, secretary, writing desk, writing table
SOFA: couch, divan, settee, sleeper sofa, sofa bed
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