cosa

Forms

cosa f (plural cose)^[1] Old Italian forms include caosa, chosa, cossa and colsa.^[2][3] The diphthong survives in the South and in parts of the North, as in Neapolitan caosa.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin causa (“cause, reason; lawsuit”), which through the sense “affair, business” took the place of rēs (“thing”) in speech.^[5][6][7][8] The Latin diphthong “au” became “o”, as in other popular words;^[9] the learned form of the same word is causa.^[1][6][9] The interrogative pronoun “cosa” “what” is a shortening of che cosa.^[1][5]

The word is continued throughout Romance except in Romanian: French chose, Occitan causa, Catalan cosa, Spanish cosa, Portuguese cousa and Dalmatian kauza.^{[10][4][6][11]} Körting notes that Latin “causa” was already used as a neutral word for “something” in Cassian.^[12]

The Latin noun was spelt caussa in older inscriptions.^[13][6] Its origin is uncertain: one proposal, which Nocentini thinks the most likely, takes it from a Proto-Italic *kaud-ta related to cūdō (“to strike”), with the original sense “blow, first push”;^[6][13] Ernout and Meillet doubt any Indo-European origin.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Genoese part of Raimbaut de Vaqueiras' Contrasto (c. 1190).^[2] At the end of the 12th century the Ritmo di Sant'Alessio uses cosa for household goods and merchandise.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian cosa already had its extremely general sense, “anything real or imagined”, as in Dante's “Temer si dee di sole quelle cose / c'hanno potenza di fare altrui male” (one should fear only those things that have the power to harm others, Inferno 2).^[8][2] It also meant a material object, a person, a feeling, a quality, a deed, an event (1282, Ristoro d'Arezzo) and the subject of a speech, and in the plural public affairs (Brunetto Latini).^[2][5] The old sense “cause, reason”, as in per questa cosa “for this reason”, lasted from Boccaccio's Fiammetta (1343–1344) into literary use.^[4] Dante (1304–1308) uses it for a work of thought or literature.^[5]

The masculine coso, a thing or person whose name one cannot or will not say, is a typically Tuscan word first found in Francesco Berni (before 1535), and cosa was used in the same way for a woman from Giovan Battista Fagiuoli (before 1742).^[5] Cosa for che cosa has old literary examples and is common in speech, including Tuscan; many 19th-century grammarians accepted it, against the purists.^[5] In 1990s journalism Cosa rossa named a left-wing political grouping still in the making.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 1190 – Raimbaut de Vaqueiras uses cosa in the Genoese verses of his Contrasto.^[2]
• Late 12th century – The Ritmo di Sant'Alessio uses it for “household goods”.^[5]
• 1282 – Ristoro d'Arezzo uses it for “event”.^[5]
• Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses it for “part of reality” and, in the plural, for “public affairs”.^[5]
• 1304–1308 – Dante uses it for “work of thought”.^[5]
• 1343–1344 – Boccaccio's Fiammetta uses it for “cause, reason”.^[4]
• Before 1535 – Francesco Berni uses the masculine coso.^[5]
• Before 1742 – Fagiuoli uses cosa for a woman whose name is not said.^[5]
• 1865 – The verb cosare is first recorded.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. thing: any object, concrete or abstract, real or imagined: in soffitta ci sono cose vecchissime.^[7][14][15]
2. (in the plural, with a possessive) One's belongings: metti in valigia le tue cose.^[7][9][16]
3. Something that happens or is done: a fact, event, matter: la cosa si è risolta da sola.^[9][16]
4. Something said, heard or known: mi ha raccontato cose interessanti.^[7]
5. Food: a cena preferisco cose semplici.^[7]
6. (law) Anything that can be the object of a legal right: cosa mobile, cosa giudicata.^[15][16]
7. (philosophy) cosa in sé, the thing-in-itself of Kant.^[15][16][14]
8. (colloquial) What's-her-name, a woman whose name one cannot remember or will not say.^[7][1]
9. (euphemistic, in the plural) le cose, menstruation.^[7][15]

Pronoun

1. (interrogative) what, short for che cosa: cosa fai stasera?.^[9][1][5]

Word family

• qualcosa
• coso
• cosare
• cosina

Related words

• causa
• French chose
• Spanish cosa

Usage notes

Fixed expressions include la cosa pubblica, the State,^[15][17] per prima cosa, first of all,^[15][16] and the proverb cosa fatta capo ha, what is done is done.^[15] The s is voiced in the North and may be voiced or voiceless in Central and Southern Italy.^[1][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it
4. ^ a b c d Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 13, 386
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
9. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1129
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
13. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
14. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
15. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
17. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli