cist

Etymology

In its archaeological sense the word is apparently borrowed from Welsh cist (“chest”), from the phrase cist faen (“stone coffin”) (see kistvaen);^[2][3][4][5] the Welsh noun is from Latin cista (“box, chest, wicker basket”),^[4][6][3] from Ancient Greek κίστη (kístē, “box, chest”).^[2][3][7] The sense of a box for sacred utensils is taken directly from the Latin word,^[2][3][5][8] and several dictionaries, including Merriam-Webster Unabridged, the American Heritage Dictionary and the Shorter Oxford, enter it separately for that reason.^[4][6][5] The same Latin word is the source of chest and kist.^[2][7][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A burial chest or chamber cut in rock or built of stones or hollowed tree trunks, especially a stone coffin made of slabs: 1804, in the journal Archæologia.^[2][4][3]

Semantic evolution

The word entered English as a term of British archaeology, for the stone-lined graves of prehistoric Britain.^[3][2] Crabbe used it in a transferred sense (before 1832).^[2] In 1847 a dictionary entered the separate sense from Greek history, a small receptacle for sacred utensils carried in procession at mystery festivals.^[2][3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged describes the archaeological cist as a Neolithic grave lined with stone slabs, and adds an American sense, a roofed storage pit, often lined with stones, found at Basket Maker sites in the southwestern United States.^[4][10] A century before these records Johnson (1755) had entered cist, from Latin, as a medical word for the coat enclosing a tumour.^[11]

Timeline

• 1804 – a prehistoric burial chest or chamber, especially one made of stone slabs.^[2][4][3]
• before 1832 – in a transferred sense, in Crabbe.^[2]
• 1847 – in Greek history, a receptacle for sacred utensils carried in procession.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (archaeology) A prehistoric burial chamber or coffin made of stone slabs set on edge and covered with another slab, or cut from a hollowed tree trunk.^[12][2][4]
2. A roofed storage pit, often lined with stones, found at Basket Maker sites in the southwestern United States.^[4][10]
3. In ancient Rome and Greece, a box, originally of wicker, for carrying sacred utensils in procession.^[4][12][2]

Word family

• cisted
• cistic

Related words

• chest
• kist
• kistvaen

Usage notes

The word is pronounced /sɪst/, and also /kɪst/ in the archaeological sense;^[2][4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives kist as a less common spelling of that sense.^[4] The Latin plural cistae is used beside cists for the ritual box.^[4]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins