coxa

Pronunciation

• IPA (Classical): [ˈkɔk.sa]^[1]
• IPA (Ecclesiastical): [ˈkɔk.sa]^[1]

Forms

coxa f (genitive coxae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *koksā- (“hip”), inherited from Proto-Indo-European *koḱs-h₂- (“limb, joint”).^[2][1] De Vaan notes that the word changed from masculine to feminine, perhaps under the influence of other names of body parts.^[2] The Germanic family of Old High German hāhsina (“hollow of the knee”), often compared, goes back to a different form and does not belong here.^[2][3]

Cognate with Old Irish cos (“foot”), Sanskrit कक्ष (kákṣa-, “armpit”), Avestan kaša- (“armpit”) and Tocharian B kakse (“loins”).^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first author is Nigidius Figulus, in the 1st century BC,^[2][5] who wrote that the trunk is supported by the hips, knees and legs.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it meant the human hip and an animal's haunch, and in Celsus and Pliny the Younger the hip-bone.^[4][7] The land surveyors used it for a re-entrant angle or inward bend of a boundary.^[4][8] In Late Latin it came to mean the thigh,^[1] the sense continued in Italian coscia and French cuisse.^[1]

Medieval texts use it mostly in anatomy and medicine for the hip-bone and hip joint.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 100–45 BC – Nigidius Figulus uses it.^[2][5]
• 1st century AD – Celsus describes stiff hips and the hip-bone.^[4][6]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder says riding is good for the stomach and hips.^[4][5]
• 1st–2nd century AD – Siculus Flaccus uses it for an inward angle of a boundary.^[4]
• 1706 – English borrows it as English coxa “hip-joint”.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. The hip of a person, the haunch of an animal.^[4][7]
2. The hip-bone.^[7][11]
3. (surveying) A re-entrant angle, an inward bend.^[4][8]
4. (Late Latin) The thigh.^[1]

Word family

• cossim
• coxus
• coxālis
• coxārius
• coxim
• coxīnus
• coxō
• incoxō

Related words

• coxendīx

Usage notes

The longer coxendix also means hip or hip-bone, and Pinault connects it with Tocharian words for “body”.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
3. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
9. ^ Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
10. ^ Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.