Cushion

The cushion is a very ancient article of furniture; the inventories of the contents of palaces and great houses in the early Middle Ages constantly made mention of them. Cushions were then often of great size, covered with leather, and firm enough to serve as a seat, but the steady tendency of all furniture has been to grow smaller with time. Cushions were, indeed, used as seats at all events in France and Spain at a very much later period, and in Saint-Simon's time we find that in the Spanish court they were still regarded as a peculiarly honourable substitute for a chair. In France, the right to kneel upon a cushion in church behind the king was jealously guarded and strictly regulated, as we learn again from Saint-Simon. This type of cushion was called a carreau, or squaer. When seats were rude and hard, cushions may have been a necessity; they are now one of the minor luxuries of life.

Package cushioning is used to help protect fragile items during shipment. It is common for a transport package to be dropped, kicked, and impacted: These events may produce potentially damaging shocks. Transportation vibration from conveyors, trucks, railroads, or aircraft can also damage some items. Shock and vibration are controlled by cushioning so that the chance of product damage is greatly reduced. Cushioning is usually inside a shipping container such as a corrugated box. It is designed to deform or crush to help keep levels of shock and vibration below levels that which may damage the product inside the box. Depending on the specific situation, package cushioning can often be between two and three inches thick.

Loose Fill - Some cushion products are flowable and are packed loosely around the items in the box. The box is closed to tighten the pack. This includes expanded polystyrene foam pieces (Foam peanuts), similar pieces made of starch based foams, and common Popcorn. Paper - Paper can be manually or mechanically wadded up and used as a cushioning material. Heavier grades of paper provide more weight bearing ability than old newspapers. Creped cellulose wadding is also available. Corrugated fiberboard pads - Multi-layer or cut-and-folded shapes of corrugated board can be used as cushions. These structures are designed to crush and deform under shock stress and provide some degree of cushioning. Honeycomb paper structures are also used for cushioning.

The term cushion is given in architecture to the sides of the Ionic capital. It is also applied to an early and simple form of the Romanesque capitals of Germany and England, which consist of cubical masses, square at the top and rounded off at the four corners, so as to reduce the lower diameter to a circle of the same size as the shaft. A cushion (from Old French coisson, coussin; from Latin culcita, a quilt) is a soft bag of some ornamental material, stuffed with wool, hair, feathers, polyester staple fiber, non-woven material, or even paper torn into fragments. It may be used for sitting or kneeling upon, or to soften the hardness or angularity of a chair or couch. Cushions and rugs can be used temporarily outside, to soften a hard ground. They can be placed on sunloungers and used to prevent annoyances from moist grass and biting insects. Some dialects of English use this word to refer to throw pillows as well.