couch potato

Someone who habitually engages in sedentary activities, usually understood as frequently watching television. Lisa wants to date a man who loves to travel and explore, not a couch potato who watches television all the time.

a lazy individual, addicted to television-watching. All he ever does is watch TV; he's become a real couch potato. Couch potatoes can tend to become very fat and unhealthy, you know.

COMMON If someone is a couch potato, they are lazy and spend most of their time sitting, watching television. Most evenings they sit, like a pair of couch potatoes in front of television. Most of these people are junk-food eating couch potatoes. Note: This expression is a complicated pun based on the American slang term `boob tube' meaning the TV, and the fact that a potato is a variety of tuber or root vegetable.

A physically lazy individual who prefers watching television to other leisure activities. This slangy expression, alluding to an inert object (potato) sitting on a sofa, was invented in the 1970s and quickly gained currency. It also has been suggested that the term is a play on boob tube (slang for television set), since a potato is a tuber. With the proliferation of remote-control devices, the dedicated television addict did not even need to get up to change programs or adjust the volume. The cliché is occasionally used more broadly as well, for anyone who is basically indolent.