the.com/cushion
the soft tax you pay to never feel the chair you're sitting in
means A soft pad or pillow placed on a seat or surface to make it more comfortable, or figuratively anything that softens an impact or provides a margin of safety.
from From Old French 'coissin' or 'cuissin', which traces back to Latin 'culcita', meaning a mattress or stuffed sack. There's a longstanding suggestion that 'cuissin' relates to 'cuisse' (thigh) — the idea being a pad for where you sit — but this thigh connection is debated and may be a tidy folk explanation rather than the true root. The Latin 'culcita' (also the ancestor of 'quilt') is the safer bet: a thing stuffed soft for the body to rest against.
- royal status
- medieval cushions signaled rank; commoners sat on bare wood
- crash physics
- airbags are cushions that inflate in 25 milliseconds
- sea creatures
- the cushion star is a real chunky orange echinoderm
- language seep
- to cushion a blow means soften any impact, not just literal ones
tempur-pedic memory foam — nasa-developed foam technology commercialized in 1992 for pillows and cushions
goose down pillows — european luxury cushions filled with goose feathers, premium bedding since 18th century
tatami floor cushions — traditional japanese zabuton and seiza cushions used for sitting on tatami mats