coast

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /kəʊst/, US /koʊst/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English coste, cost,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French coste (“rib, side, flank; slope; coast, shore”) (modern côte),^[4][2] from Latin costa (“rib, side”),^[4][2] which in Medieval Latin also meant “shore”.^[2][4] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster relate it to Old Church Slavonic kostĭ “bone”,^[2][3] but de Vaan, cited by Etymonline, calls it an isolated word without etymology.^[4] The verb is partly from the noun and partly from Old French costeier.^[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A rib, as part of the side of the body: probably about 1125,^[2] the early 12th century in Etymonline.^[4] The seashore is from before 1338, in Mannyng's Chronicle of England,^[2] and “coast of the sea” from about 1330 in the OED.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Latin costa came to mean the side of the land, and also the side of a hill, in the Romance languages, as in Spanish cuesta “slope” and costa “coast”;^[4] only the Germanic languages that borrowed it, such as Dutch kust and German Küste, specialized it fully as “shore”.^[4] In English the sense “rib, side of the body” lasted until about the start of the 19th century,^[7] and in Middle English a coast was also a region or a side.^[8] The phrase the coast is clear, from the 16th century, pictures landing on a shore unguarded by enemies.^[4] The verb meant “to keep by the side of, skirt” from the late 14th century^[4] (about 1390, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight).^[2] From the French sense “hillside” came the American use “to slide down a slope on a sled”, from 1775 or 1836,^[4][2] then to freewheel downhill on a bicycle (1879), to move without engine power (1896),^[4] and figuratively to achieve something without effort (1934).^[2] Coastline is from 1860 and Coast Guard from 1833.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1125 – a rib.^[2]
• before 1338 – the seashore.^[2]
• c. 1390 – verb, to skirt.^[2]
• 16th century – the coast is clear.^[4]
• 1775 – verb, to sled downhill.^[4]
• 1833 – Coast Guard.^[2]
• 1879 – verb, to freewheel on a bicycle.^[4]
• 1934 – verb, to succeed without effort.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The land next to the sea; the shore.
2. A slide down a slope, as on a sled.

Verb

1. To move without power, using momentum or gravity, as a car or bicycle going downhill.
2. To make progress without effort.
3. To sail along a coast.

Word family

• coastal
• coastwise
• coaster
• coastland
• coastline
• coast-to-coast
• coastward
• seacoast

Related words

• coast guard
• cutlet
• accost
• costal
• intercostal
• Costa Rica

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press