coll

coll¹ neck

Etymology tree of coll¹

inherited borrowed derived

Latin collum

Catalan coll

French col

Italian colle

French cou

Italian collo

Spanish cuello

From the same root · coll¹

English accolade ← collum

Latin collārium ← collum

Latin decollo ← collum

Pronunciation

• Northern: [ˈko̞ʎ]^[1]
• Balearic, Central, Northwestern, Valencia: [ˈkɔʎ]^[1]

Forms

coll m (plural colls)^[1] Medieval texts also write coyl and col.^[2]

Etymology

The word for the neck is inherited from Latin collum (“neck”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]}

The same Latin word is Italian collo, French cou, Occitan còl, Spanish cuello and Portuguese colo.^[6][1]

The origin of the Latin word is uncertain;^[1] Wiktionary mentions Proto-Italic *kʷolsom, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- (“to turn”), and compares Old English heals (“neck”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Coromines gives the anatomical sense from the 13th century, in Llull and Jaume I.^[2] Jaume I's chronicle lists among booty perles e sartes de coyl, "pearls and strings for the neck".^[2] CICA's earliest text with the spelling coll is Llull's Llibre de meravelles of 1288–1289.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The phrase a coll "carried on the shoulders" grew out of expressions such as portar al coll; it is almost fixed in the toll list of Puigcerdà in 1288, which names the coller, the porter who carries goods a coll.^[2] The emphatic a coll-i-be "astride someone's shoulders" comes from the way shepherds carry lambs, be being the children's word for a lamb.^[2]

Like the parts of other objects, the word came to mean the neck of a bottle or a jar, the collar of a garment and the narrowest part of a limb or an organ.^[3][5] A collar sold separately (un coll de seda) is recorded in 1514.^[8] On the coasts and on the Ebro a big wave is called a coll de mar or coll de riu;^[2] Coromines sees in it the sense of a hill.^[2]

Timeline

• 1244–1274 – coyl in the Llibre dels fets of Jaume I.^[2][3]
• 1288 – a coll in the toll list of Puigcerdà.^[2]
• 1288–1289 – coll in Llull's Llibre de meravelles.^[7]
• 1316 – the derivative collar.^[4]
• 1325 – Muntaner writes of horsemen with the shield al coll.^[2]
• 1839 – Labèrnia's dictionary gives the neck, the mountain pass and the neck of a bottle.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) The neck, the part of the body that joins the head to the trunk: Duia una bufanda al coll.^[10][5][1]
2. a coll: on one's shoulders: portar un sac a coll.^[10][2]
3. The throat.^[5][1]
4. The collar of a garment; a detachable collar.^[10][5]
5. The neck of an object, such as a bottle, a well or an oar.^[10][5]
6. (anatomy) The narrowest part of a limb or an organ.^[5][3]

Word family

• collar
• collaret
• coller
• collera
• collejar
• collut
• escollar
• sobrecoll
• colltort
• colltòrcer
• a coll-i-be

coll² mountain pass, hill

Etymology tree of coll²

inherited borrowed derived

Latin collis

Catalan coll

Italian colle

From the same root · coll²

Latin collīnus ← collis

Pronunciation

• Northern: [ˈko̞ʎ]^[1]
• Balearic, Central, Northwestern, Valencia: [ˈkɔʎ]^[1]

Forms

coll m (plural colls)^[1]

Etymology

The word for a mountain pass or a hill is inherited from Latin collis (“hill”).^[2][3][1][5] Coromines writes that it comes "rather" from ⟨collis⟩, which in Catalan and some neighbouring languages merged and was confused with the Latin word for the neck.^[2][11] The DCVB follows Manuel de Montoliu: the hill sense continues ⟨collis⟩, and as there is no height without a depression beside it, the neck word helped the hill word to mean the pass between two summits, as happened with Spanish collado.^[3] Bruguera derives the anatomical word from ⟨collum⟩ and the landform from ⟨collis⟩, but notes that the two cannot always be told apart in the derivatives.^[4]

The same Latin word is Italian colle and Old Occitan col.^[12] The Latin word continues Proto-Italic *kolni-, from a root meaning "to lift"; its cognates include Lithuanian kálnas (“hill”) and Old English hyll.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Charters of the 9th to 11th centuries use the word as a landform: Romance col in 996 and 1034, and the Latinised collum often from 898.^[2] Usually it cannot be decided whether a pass or a hill is meant, though Col de Cabra in 1067 is the well-known pass.^[2] The sense "pass" is clear in the 13th century in a glossary that translates Latin collis with the Mozarabic word for a mountain pass.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The old language and the southern dialects also used coll for a low hill: Jaume I's Coll de Murvedre is the hill of Sagunt, and the Questa of Reixac sees a cross an un col.^[2] Muntaner and Desclot speak of the passes of Panissars and la Maçana, and Sant Vicent Ferrer compares the narrow way of virtue to a pass aspre e stret.^[2] Labèrnia defined it in 1839 as a narrow place between two mountains, and Fabra in 1932 as a marked depression in the crest of a range.^[9][14] In the threshing vocabulary the DCVB records coll for the long heap of grain and straw on the threshing floor and for the side from which the wind comes.^[3]

Timeline

• 898 – the Latinised collum in charters.^[2]
• 996 – Romance col in a charter.^[2]
• 1067 – Col de Cabra.^[2]
• 13th century – a glossary translates Latin collis as a mountain pass.^[2]
• 1932 – Fabra defines coll as a depression in a mountain crest.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A mountain pass, a depression in a ridge used to cross from one side to the other.^[10][5][1]
2. (old or dialectal) A hill.^[10][5][1]
3. (heraldry) A charge of two mountains joined at the base, the one on the dexter side higher.^[10][5]
4. (dialectal) The long heap of grain and straw on a threshing floor.^[3]

Word family

• collada
• collet