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Etymology and origin of the English word cot

Pronunciation

cot1 small house, shelter

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 893 Old English translation of Orosius
Inherited from
Old English cot via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Proto-Germanic *kutą

Etymology

The word for a small house is inherited from Middle English cot, also cote,[2][3] inherited from Old English cot (“cottage, house, bed-chamber, den”), plural cotu.[4][5][6] Old English also had cote in the same sense, the source of cote.[5][7][2] It is cognate with Middle Dutch cot, Dutch kot, Middle Low German kot and Old Norse kot (“hut”),[5][8][6][2] from Proto-Germanic *kutą.[8][6][9] Kroonen sees the Germanic noun in an ablaut relationship with words for a wickerwork hut and a basket.[9] The Shorter Oxford compares kytja (“hovel”),[7][10] and Barnhart traces the group to a word for the lowliest shelter, a lair or a covered hollow in the ground, from Proto-Indo-European *gudom.[8] Merriam-Webster sets beside it words for bowels and the throat, with a basic meaning "round, curved",[11] while Weekley thought it probably cognate with coat, from the idea of covering,[12] and Partridge suggested a Celtic origin.[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A small house or cottage: in the Old English translation of Orosius,[5] about 893 in Barnhart's dating.[8] Old English used it also for a bed-chamber and for an animal's den.[4][8]

Semantic evolution

From about 1450 cot was also a small building put up for shelter or protection, for sheep or a bell, as in sheep-cot and bell-cot; in this sense it overlaps with cote.[5][7] A further sense, a case or protective covering such as a finger-stall or the cloth on a roller in a spinning frame, appears in 1617 and is now dialectal or technical.[5][11] Johnson (1755) defined the word as a small house, a cottage or a hut, with quotations from Spenser's Faerie Queene and Shakespeare.[14] As a word for a dwelling it is now chiefly poetic or literary, and suggests a small and humble house rather than a rough one.[5][7] In Scotland, Ireland and many English counties it was still used in the 19th century for a cottage or small dwelling-house.[15] The verb, to put sheep into a cot or keep them under shelter, is recorded from 1804.[5][7]

Timeline

  • c. 893 – Old English cot, a small house or cottage.[5][8]
  • c. 1450 – a small shelter for animals or for a bell.[5]
  • 1617 – a protective covering, a finger-stall.[5][7]
  • 1804 – verb, to put sheep into a cot.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (literary) A small, simple cottage or hut: a shepherd's cot on the moor.[11][7][5]
  2. A small shelter for animals, a cote; also in compounds such as bell-cot.[11][7][5]
  3. A protective cover or sheath, especially for a finger.[11][7][5]

Verb

  1. To put animals, especially sheep, into a cot for shelter.[11][5][7]

cot2 light bed, camp bed, child's bed

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1634 Thomas Herbert, Relation of Some Yeares Travaile
Borrowed from
Hindi खाट
Ultimate origin
Sanskrit खट्वा

Etymology

The word for a light bed is borrowed from Hindi खाट (khāṭ, “bedstead, couch, hammock, bier”), taken over in Anglo-Indian use in the early 17th century,[5][8][11][16] from Prakrit khaṭṭā, from Sanskrit खट्वा (khaṭvā, “bedstead”).[5][16][17][2] The Sanskrit word is probably of Dravidian origin, and the dictionaries compare a Tamil and Malayalam word for a bedstead.[8][16][11][2][18] Hobson-Jobson found the origin less simple: the English word was most at home as a sea term and in South India, where the Tamil and Malayalam word had been adopted by the Portuguese, and it noted Spanish catre, also Portuguese, for a bedstead, but held these forms to be of Indian origin.[19]

Earliest recorded meaning

A light bedstead in India: 1634, in Thomas Herbert's account of his travels.[5][8][11] Etymonline dates it to the 1630s,[18] and Dictionary.com to 1625–35.[17]

Semantic evolution

The Anglo-Indian word passed into naval use, and then to a child's swinging cot.[5] By 1769 it was a canvas bed in a frame hung from the deck beams for officers and sick men on board ship,[5][18][7] then from 1813 a small bed for a child, at first one hung so as to swing between uprights.[5][7] Weekley notes that the word was used from the 17th century in military and nautical senses, and that the child's cot is first recorded in Todd's dictionary.[12] From 1854 it was also a portable or folding bed,[5][18] a sense the Shorter Oxford marks as American,[7] then from 1874 a bed in a children's hospital, in the United States also a hospital bed or wheeled stretcher.[5][7] In northern India the English word was largely replaced by charpoy, but it stayed in use for barrack furniture and among soldiers and their families.[19]

Timeline

  • 1634 – Anglo-Indian, a light bedstead.[5][8][11]
  • 1769 – a swinging canvas bed on board ship.[5][18]
  • 1813 – a small bed for a child.[5] Etymonline dates this sense to 1818.[18]
  • 1854 – a portable or folding bed.[5][18]
  • 1874 – a bed in a children's hospital.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (British) A small bed with high, barred sides for a baby or young child, the American crib: The baby slept soundly in her cot.[20][11][7]
  2. (chiefly US) A narrow, light bed that can be folded, a camp bed.[11][20][7]
  3. (India) A light bedstead, a charpoy.[11][5][20]
  4. (nautical, historical) A hammock-like bed of canvas on a frame, hung on board ship for officers and the sick.[11][20][7]
  5. (US) A hospital bed or wheeled stretcher.[11][7]

Word family

  • carrycot
  • cot death

Usage notes

Other words spelled cot are dialectal or technical: matted wool in a fleece, a word that came through Anglo-Norman;[5][7][11] a small flat-bottomed boat in Ireland, a borrowing of an Irish word;[5][7][15] and the abbreviation of cotangent in mathematics.[7][2]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  3. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  9. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  12. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  13. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  15. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  16. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  17. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  18. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  19. ^ a b Yule, Henry; Burnell, A. C. (1903), Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, new ed. by William Crooke, London: John Murray
  20. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Cot.” Etymologically, 1 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/cot. Accessed 1 Nov. 2026.

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