coser

Forms

coser (first-person singular present coso, first-person singular preterite cosí, past participle cosido)^[1] A form cusir, with the change of conjugation also found in Catalan and Italian, is recorded since Autoridades as a jocular word for sewing or mending roughly.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish coser, inherited from Vulgar Latin *cōsēre, from Latin cōnsuō (“to sew together”).^[1][2][4][5] The Latin verb is formed from con- and suō (“to sew”), and replaced the simple verb in all the Romance languages.^[2][6] Bénaben explains the Vulgar Latin infinitive as remade from a contracted first person of the present.^[7]

The same verb is Portuguese coser, Galician coser, Catalan cosir, French coudre, Italian cucire and Romanian coase.^[8][1][9] Corominas rejects García de Diego's view that the variant ending in -ir shows the influence of sarciō (“to mend”).^[2]

The simple verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *siuH- (“to sew”), with cognates in Sanskrit, Baltic and Gothic, such as Lithuanian siūti (“to sew”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is a charter from the Basque Country of 1179, then Berceo.^[2][4] Berceo's Duelo de la Virgen uses the verb for nailing Christ to the cross: cosieronli con clavos los piedes e las manos.^[11] Alfonso X's translation of Moamín's treatise on hunting birds tells how their eyes should be sewn shut until they are tame.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Juan Manuel and López de Ayala (Libro de la caza, 1386) use the verb for joining cloth with needle and thread.^[13] Covarrubias (1611) records coserse con la tierra “to humble oneself”.^[14] Autoridades adds “to join one thing closely to another” and coser a puñaladas “to stab repeatedly”, and notes forms with g in the present.^[15] The Academy's dictionary of 1884 has coser y cantar, said of a task without difficulty.^[16] The sense “to join papers with staples” is in the Academy's dictionary of 2001.^[17]

Because coser and cocer “to cook” sound the same where /θ/ and /s/ have merged, Chile, Honduras and Nicaragua use costurar or costurear for sewing, as does the Portuguese of Goa.^[2] In New Mexico and southern Colorado the two verbs are confused and both diphthongise (cueso).^[18]

Timeline

• 1179 – first record, in a charter from the Basque Country.^[2][4]
• c. 1236–1246 – Berceo's Duelo de la Virgen.^[11]
• 1250–1300 – Alfonso X's translation of Moamín's treatise on hunting birds.^[12]
• c. 1330 – first record of the derivative costura.^[4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin suo, insuo and assuo; first record of descoser and costurera.^[19][4]
• 1543 – first record from the Americas, in Panama.^[20]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades records coser a puñaladas.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy records coser y cantar.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. To sew: to join pieces of cloth, leather or other material with thread, usually with a needle.^[5][1]
2. To make or mend a garment with a needle or a sewing machine; also intransitive, to sew for a living: Su abuela cosía para las vecinas.^[5]
3. To join papers with staples.^[5]
4. To join one thing closely to another.^[5]
5. To riddle someone with wounds: coser a puñaladas, coser a balazos.^[5][15]
6. (pronominal) To cling closely to someone or something.^[5][21]

Word family

• cosido
• cosedura
• costura
• costurero
• costurera
• costurón
• descoser
• descosido
• recoser
• corcusir

Related words

• inconsútil
• sutura
• Latin cōnsuō
• Portuguese coser
• French coudre

Usage notes

Ser algo coser y cantar means “to be very easy”.^[5] Autoridades has an unrelated obsolete noun coser, “colt”, from a law of the Recopilación.^[15] Where coser and cocer sound alike, speakers in parts of the Americas avoid the confusion with costurar.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 221
3. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. consuere
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. coser
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. coser
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. cōnsuō
7. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. coser
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ 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
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 261
12. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. coser
13. ^ Alonso Pedraz, Martín (1986), Diccionario medieval español: desde las Glosas Emilianenses y Silenses (s. X) hasta el siglo XV, 2 vols., Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, p. 801
14. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 526
15. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 637
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 301
17. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. coser
18. ^ Cobos, Rubén (1983), A Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish, Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, p. 57
19. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 320
20. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. coser
21. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. coser