I am studying the difference between coupon and voucher. I talked to three natives today:
US guy: voucher can be used only once, and it is either a discount or you can have a sample product for free.
US guy number 2: coupons can be used repeteadly until its credit is used up.
UK guy: voucher is more common in the UK, coupon in the US
hypothesis: Maybe that coupons are sold for a particular value, eg 20 USD each coupon. And someone has eg 5 of them. Voucher means a discount from the purchase that you make.
hypothesis: Maybe they use these two words differently in the UK and US.
Wikipedia writes that voucher is a synonyme for receipt. That confuses me a bit. Does it have more meanings?
What is the difference?
wiki pages
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voucher
Thank you.
Best Answer
In the OED the noun coupon has four principal senses and many sub-senses, but at its most general - sense 1. coupon means:
Coupons can be used for many purposes - but in essence they are certificates which confirm some sort of (usually)commercial entitlement.
A voucher has a separate range of meanings, the older of which have a strictly legal essence e.g.
sense 1a:
sense 2a:
sense 2b:
It is when you get to sense 2d, that voucher becomes synonymous with some of the senses of coupon: But note that the earliest example of this rather everyday use is from 1947. sense 2d.
It seems clear that before and during WW2, coupon would have been the principle term for a commercial document proving entitlement. The UK's wartime food rationing system was based on coupons. But, from mid-century it would seem that the old legal term voucher gained prominence.