cot

Forms

cot n (nominative plural cotu) (strong a-stem)^[1] Also cott; dative singular cotte and dative plural cottum in the Lindisfarne gloss.^[2][3] A weak feminine cote stands beside it.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *kutą (“shed, hut”).^[1][6] It matches Old Norse kot (“cottage, hut”) and Dutch kot (“hut, cabin”).^[6][7][8] Within Germanic Kroonen sees ablaut variants in Middle High German kōtze (“basket”) and dialect German words for a fisherman's hut.^[6]

The further origin is unclear.^[6] Kroonen finds it hard to separate the word from Finnish kota (“hut, house”) and Hungarian ház (“house”), both from a Finno-Ugric word for a hut, and notes that the Finnish word cannot be a loan from Germanic because the Hungarian one is old;^[6][1] Wiktionary leaves open a non-Indo-European source.^[6][1] Köbler and Wiktionary also mention the root Proto-Indo-European *gewd- (“to bend, curve”).^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first dated record is a charter of 863 surviving as an original single sheet of the mid-ninth century, in which Æthelberht, king of Wessex and Kent, grants land at Mersham in Kent; the Latin text adds in Old English a salt-boiling place & ðer cota to “and the cottages belonging to it there”.^[10][11]

Semantic evolution

The word names a cottage or small house, and the Orosius uses it for people's own homes: æt ham æt heora cotum “at home in their cottages”.^[12][11] In the Northumbrian gospel glosses it renders “cubiculum”, a bedroom, and in the West Saxon Gospels it is the “den” of thieves that the temple has been made into.^[12][3][9] It is common in charter bounds and field-names, where Middendorff records it also for animal shelters, as in later dove-cote.^[5][13]

The word lived on as Middle English cot, beside cote from the feminine.^[14][15]

Timeline

• 863 – ðer cota to in Æthelberht's charter for Mersham, Kent, an original.^[10][11]
• s. x¹ or x²/⁴ – æt heora cotum in the Old English Orosius.^[16][11]
• s. x³/⁴ – in cotte ðinum “into your room” in the Lindisfarne Gospels gloss.^[17][3]
• c. 1225 – Middle English cot glossing “cella” in the Worcester copy of Ælfric's Glossary.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. a cottage, small house, hut.^[12][4][18]
2. a bedchamber.^[12][3]
3. a den, of thieves.^[12][18]

Word family

• būrcot

Descendants

• Middle English cot (→ English cot)^[14][1]

Related words

• ċīete

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 168
3. ^ a b c d Cook, Albert S. (1894), A Glossary of the Old Northumbrian Gospels, Halle: Niemeyer, p. s.v. cot
4. ^ a b Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 73
5. ^ a b Middendorff, H. (1902), Altenglisches Flurnamenbuch, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 30
6. ^ a b c d e f Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 313
7. ^ Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. kot
8. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 58
9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. cot
10. ^ a b The Electronic Sawyer: Online Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Charters, revised ed. by S. E. Kelly and R. Rushforth, King's College London / University of Cambridge, esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk, p. S 332
11. ^ a b c d Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
12. ^ a b c d e Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 167
13. ^ LangScape: The Language of Landscape: Reading the Anglo-Saxon Countryside, King's College London, langscape.org.uk
14. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
15. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
16. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 249
17. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 291
18. ^ a b Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 58