futon

Meanings

1. A thin mattress of tufted cotton or similar material, placed on a floor or on a raised, foldable frame as a bed.
2. A round cushion used for Zen meditation, traditionally made of woven bulrush leaves.
3. A specific kind of sofa-bed, with a fixed cushion that forms a mattress when folded down and a sofa when folded up.

1. Abbreviation of full text on the Net: the presence of the complete text of an academic paper on the Internet, seen as a potential biasing factor in which papers get cited most often.

Etymology

Borrowed from Japanese 布団 (futon), in turn from Middle Chinese 蒲團 (MC bu dwan, “meditation cushion”) (compare Mandarin 蒲团 (pútuán)), from 蒲 (bu, “bulrush, cattail”) + 團 (dwan, “sphere, round object”) from the way the original cushion was round and made from woven bulrushes.