1. A portable or folding bed chiefly for use in the field; a camp or trestle bedstead.
1580. Hollyband, Treas. Fr. Tong., Lict de camp, a fielde bed.
c. 1590. Greene, Fr. Bacon, V. 10. Upon their backs will I have a fair field-bed with a canopy.
1709. Strype, Ann. Ref., I. lv. 604. The Spaniard that had them, made his Brags, that he had turned the English Ensigns into Spanish Field-beds.
1728. De Foe, Mem. Capt. G. Carleton (1841), 33. He ordered his field-bed to be put up near the powder, and so lay down to take a short nap.
2. A bed in the open field or upon the ground.
1592. Shaks., Rom. & Jul., II. i. 40.
| Ile to my truckle bed, | |
| This Field-bed is to cold for me to sleepe. |
1645. G. Daniel, Poems, Wks. 1878, II. 42.
| The night is fled, and Daye’s best Chorister | |
| Kickes his feild-Bed with Scorne. |
1754. A. Murphy, Gray’s-Inn Journal, No. 100. He was making his Brags that he had been in a Field-bed with a young Lady, whose Brother was present.
attrib. 1599. Massinger, etc., The Old Law, IV. ii.
| You left a strumpet and a whore at home with me, | |
| And such fine field-bed words, which could not cost you. |
