Skip to content
SlangWordsOnline

chesterfield

nounDated

A Canadian English slang term. Browse all Canadian slang.

What it means

  1. A sofa. Once the standard Canadian word and now genuinely receding — mostly used by speakers over sixty, with couch having taken over.

In use

  • Grandma still calls it the chesterfield.

  • He fell asleep on the chesterfield.

Where it comes from

From a specific style of buttoned leather sofa named for an Earl of Chesterfield. Canada generalised the brand-adjacent term to all sofas; the reversal back to 'couch' over the last forty years is one of the better-documented changes in Canadian English.