tos

Forms

tos f (plural toses)^[1] Old Spanish also had tosse and tose, used until the 16th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish tos, inherited from Latin tussis (“cough”).^[2][4][5][1] Like other words ending in ⟨-s⟩, Old Spanish also had a variant tosse, used by Nebrija and Palencia and still by Laguna in 1555.^[2] The same word is Portuguese tosse, Galician tose, Asturian tos, Catalan tos, Occitan tos, French toux, Italian tosse and Romanian tuse.^[6][7][1] The verb toser continues Latin tussīre with a change of conjugation found only in Castilian.^[2] The other languages keep the ending of the infinitive, as in Catalan tossir, Portuguese tussir and Asturian tusir.^[2]

De Vaan finds a link with tundō (“to beat”) conceivable in meaning, but the form expected from that verb would have a long vowel and a single /s/.^[8] He explains the word as such a form with expressive doubling of the consonant, or as pure onomatopoeia, and notes that the Indo-European root for “to cough”, Proto-Indo-European *kʷeh₂s-, also ends in /s/.^[8] Wiktionary derives it from *tud-tí-s (“cough”), from *(s)tewd- and ultimately *(s)tew- (“to push, hit”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Alfonso X's Lapidario (1250–1279) recommends a stone whose sweet juice is given to drink to a man que aya tosse o otra dolencia en los pechos “who has a cough or another ailment of the chest”.^[9] Corominas's first record is Juan Ruiz, dated 1335 in his short dictionary.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept the Latin meaning throughout its history.^[2] Covarrubias calls the cough an ordinary complaint of the old and of those with catarrh, and quotes the proverb más vale sudar que toser “better to sweat than to cough”.^[10] The Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as the force the chest makes with the breath to throw off what troubles it.^[11] Terreros distinguishes tos seca, in which no phlegm is brought up, and notes that animals cough too.^[12]

The Academy entered tos convulsiva or tos ferina, whooping cough, in 1884.^[13] Regional phrases include tos de sótano, a deep heavy cough, in the Canaries, and tos de ahogo for whooping cough in Bolivia.^[14][15] In Argentina ¡mala tos le siento al gato! says that a business is taking a bad turn.^[16]

Timeline

• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario has tosse.^[9]
• 13th century – the form tose in the Reglas of Santiago.^[3]
• 1335 – Juan Ruiz, Corominas's first record.^[4][2]
• c. 1400 – the verb toser in the glossaries of the Escorial.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija enters tosse and tosse pequeña.^[17]
• 1520 – first record from the Americas, in Cuba.^[18]
• 1555 – Laguna still writes tosse.^[2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias quotes más vale sudar que toser.^[10]
• 1733 – Suárez de Ribera's edition of Laguna changes tosse to tos.^[2]
• 1884 – tos convulsiva or ferina enters the Academy's dictionary.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cough: the sudden, noisy, convulsive expulsion of air from the lungs, in people and some animals: Tengo tos desde el lunes.^[5][1]
2. (medicine) In tos ferina, tos convulsiva or tos convulsa: whooping cough, with violent, suffocating fits.^[5][19]

Word family

• toser
• tosecilla
• tosferina

Related words

• Latin tussis
• Portuguese tosse

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 565
3. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. tos
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tos
5. ^ a b c 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. tos
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6937
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ 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. tos
10. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1340
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 309
12. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 672
13. ^ 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. 1037
14. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. tos
15. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. tos
16. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 480
17. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. tos
18. ^ 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. tos
19. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tos