cosir

Forms

cosir (first-person singular present cuso, first-person singular preterite cosí, past participle cosit)^[1] Old Catalan wrote cosir and cusir;^[2][3] Faraudo heads the verb cosir with cusir beside it.^[2][3] The stressed forms of the present have /u/: cuso, cuses, cus, cusen, beside cosim, cosiu.^[4] The DCVB records [kuzí], [kozí], [kusí], [kosí] and, in Valencian, [kozíɾ].^[5] Coromines finds the form in ⟨-ir⟩ over the whole language area, from the Balearics to Upper Ribagorça, except in Roussillon, where a form stressed on the stem prevails from Perpignan to Cerdanya; the pronunciation with /u/ reaches much of Mallorca and the north and east of Western Catalan.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cōnsuō (“to sew together”), infinitive ⟨cōnsuere⟩, with a change to the conjugation in ⟨-ir⟩.^{[3][5][6][7][1]} Wiktionary sets up an intermediate *cosiō.^[1] The Latin verb is formed with con- and suō (“to sew”).^[8][6]

The same Latin verb is Spanish coser, Portuguese coser, French coudre, Italian cucire and Romanian coase.^[9][1] The DCECH notes that the Romance languages replaced the simple Latin verb with the compound everywhere, and that Catalan shares the change of conjugation with Italian, Romansh and Sardinian;^[10] Spanish has a familiar cusir beside the usual verb.^[10] García de Diego explains the forms in ⟨-ir⟩ by the influence of sarciō (“to mend”).^[11] Coromines groups the reduction of ⟨consuere⟩ with that of battuō and futuō, whose descendants are batre and fotre.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Bruguera and the GDLC date the first record to about 1200, in the Roussillon Vides de sants;^[6][7][3] Coromines places it in the 13th century.^[6][7][3] There Pilate puts on Christ's tunic que no era cosida, translating Latin inconsutilis “seamless”; one manuscript has an analogical participle cosita, after collita, the old feminine participle of collir.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Llull lists sewing among the crafts that hinder prayer, and speaks of the furriers sewing one skin to another.^[2][13] The Tirant has a hide sewn up again (tornaren a cusir lo cuyro).^[3][14] Aguiló records the shoemakers' terms and the sense of running someone through with a knife, cosir a algú amb coltell.^[14]

The dictionaries of the 19th century headed the verb cusir and referred cosir to it; the Valencian ones kept cosir, with cosir a punyalades “to stab repeatedly” and cosir-se la boca “to keep silent”.^[15][16][17] Fabra's dictionary made cosir the standard form.^[18]

Of the family, costura is recorded in 1302, from a Vulgar Latin *consutura, descosir in 1318, cosidura about 1500 and cosidor in 1593.^[6][3]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Roussillon Vides de sants: que no era cosida.^[6][7][3]
• 1272 – Llull's Llibre de contemplació: arar e cavar e cusir e dolar.^[2]
• 1302 – the noun costura.^[6]
• 1318 – descosir in a document.^[3]
• 1335 – a Moorish seamstress of Saragossa is paid for sewing the princes' shirts.^[2]
• 1460 – Jaume Roig: no vol cosir.^[2]
• 1803 – Esteve, Bellvitges and Juglà refer cosir to cusir.^[19]
• 1932 – Fabra's Diccionari general heads the verb cosir.^[18]

Meanings

Verb

1. To sew, join pieces of cloth, leather and so on with stitches of thread passed with a needle: La iaia em va cosir el botó de l'abric.^[4][7]
2. (by extension) To be stuck to someone or something: sempre està cosit a la seva mare.^[4]
3. To make the seams of a garment, a sail and so on.^[4]
4. (figurative) cosir algú a punyalades: to stab someone repeatedly.^[4][16]
5. (medicine) To close with stitches, to suture.^[4]
6. (printing) To join the sections of a book for binding.^[7]

Word family

• cosidor
• cosidura
• cosit
• costura
• costurer
• costurera
• descosir
• recosir

Related words

• sutura
• inconsútil
• Latin cōnsuō
• Spanish coser

Usage notes

The DCVB has a second cosir, a noun meaning “care, worry”, which is consir with the loss of the n before s frequent in Old Catalan.^[20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Faraudo de Saint-Germain, Lluís, Vocabulari de la llengua catalana medieval, online edition, Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, p. s.v. cosir
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 2, 992
4. ^ a b c d e f Institut d'Estudis Catalans (2007), Diccionari de la llengua catalana, 2nd ed. (DIEC2), Barcelona: Edicions 62; online edition with later updates, https://dlc.iec.cat, p. s.v. cosir
5. ^ a b Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. cosir
6. ^ a b c d e f g Bruguera, Jordi (1996), Diccionari etimològic, Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana, p. 247
7. ^ a b c d e f Enciclopèdia Catalana, Gran diccionari de la llengua catalana (GDLC), Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana; online edition, https://www.diccionari.cat, p. s.v. cosir
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 221
11. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. consuere
12. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 1, 728
13. ^ Nou glossari general lul·lià (NGGL), Centre de Documentació Ramon Llull, Universitat de Barcelona, https://nggl.ub.edu, p. s.v. cosir
14. ^ a b Aguiló i Fuster, Marià (1914–1934), Diccionari Aguiló: materials lexicogràfics, ed. Pompeu Fabra and Manuel de Montoliu, 8 vols., Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, p. 3
15. ^ Labèrnia, Pere (1839–1840), Diccionari de la llengua catalana ab la correspondencia castellana y llatina, 2 vols., Barcelona, p. s.v. cosir
16. ^ a b Escrig, José (1851), Diccionario valenciano-castellano, Valencia, p. s.v. cosir
17. ^ Martí Gadea, Joaquim (1891), Novísimo diccionario general valenciano-castellano, Valencia, p. s.v. cosir
18. ^ a b Fabra, Pompeu (1932), Diccionari general de la llengua catalana, Barcelona: Llibreria Catalònia, p. s.v. cosir
19. ^ Esteve, Joaquim; Bellvitges, Josep; Juglà, Antoni (1803–1805), Diccionario catalán-castellano-latino, 2 vols., Barcelona, p. s.v. cosir
20. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. cosir 2