Etymologically
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coast

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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
  • 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