coser

Forms

coser (first-person singular present coso, first-person singular preterite cosi, past participle cosido)^[1] Houaiss records the 15th-century spellings cosser and cozer.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *cōsēre, a popular form of Latin cōnsuō (“to sew together”), and was written Old Galician-Portuguese coser in the oldest texts.^[3][1][4] The DHLF explains the Vulgar Latin verb as remade on the first person ⟨*coso⟩ that replaced ⟨consuo⟩.^[5] Houaiss notes that the compound took the place of the simple suō (“to sew”) in the Romance languages.^[2][6]

The same Latin word is Galician coser, Spanish coser, Catalan cosir, French coudre, Italian cucire and Romanian coase.^[7][2][1] García de Diego explains Catalan cusir, also Aragonese, by the influence of sarciō (“to mend”).^[8]

The Latin verb is formed of con- and the simple verb, which de Vaan traces to Proto-Indo-European *syewH- (“to sew”), the root of sew.^[9][10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the verb to the 13th century.^[2][3] Lorenzo's chronology cites the Cantigas de Santa Maria, where a woman has shirts cut and sewn with silk, lle fez camisas / tallar e coser con seda, and keeps sewing on the Sabbath she had promised to keep.^[11]

Semantic evolution

From the start the verb has meant joining cloth with needle and thread; a cantiga warns against setting a daughter to weave or to sew.^[11][12] Bluteau (1712–1728) already has coser huma ferida “to stitch a wound”.^[13] Morais (1789) mentions boats in Asia whose planks were sewn with coir, and the phrase coser a bebedice “to sleep off drunkenness”.^[14]

Figurative senses grew from the image of stitching: coser a facadas “to riddle with stab wounds”, and “to press close to something”.^[2][15] In Rio Grande do Sul the verb also means to hit someone repeatedly with kicks, a knife or bullets, and, as coser-se, to draw close to someone.^[16]

Timeline

• 13th century – first record, in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][11]
• 14th century – first record of descoser “to unstitch”.^[3]
• 15th century – the spellings cosser and cozer.^[2]
• 1518 – coser in a dated witness of the Espelho de Cristina.^[17]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau lists coser huma ferida.^[13]
• 1755 – Folqman separates coser with a needle from cozer at the fire.^[18]

Meanings

Verb

1. To sew; to join with stitches of needle and thread: Coseu um botão na camisa.^[2][4][1]
2. (intransitive) To do needlework: Passa as manhãs a coser.^[2][19]
3. (medicine) To suture the edges of a wound or incision.^[2][20]
4. (figurative) To pierce or stab repeatedly: coser a facadas.^[2][4]
5. To press something close against something else.^[2][19]
6. (reflexive, figurative) To draw close to someone or something.^[2][21]

Word family

• descoser

Related words

• costura
• costurar
• sutura
• inconsútil
• Latin cōnsuō
• Galician coser

Usage notes

Coser “to sew” is easily confused with its homophone cozer “to cook”, and Priberam sends the reader from one to the other.^[19] Feijó's spelling guide of 1734 already sets coser “with a needle” against cozer.^[22] Old texts do not always keep them apart: a medieval Galician text glossed in the DDGM has the participle cosjda in the sense “boiled”.^[11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. coser
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. coser
4. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. coser
5. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. coudre
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 221
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. consuere
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. consuere
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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 c d Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. coser
12. ^ Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. coser
13. ^ a b Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. coser
14. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1789), Diccionario da lingua portugueza composto pelo padre D. Rafael Bluteau, reformado, e accrescentado, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 1, 339
15. ^ Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. coser
16. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. coser
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. coser
18. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. coser
19. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. coser
20. ^ Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. coser
21. ^ Michaelis: Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo: Melhoramentos (online as Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa, https://michaelis.uol.com.br), p. s.v. coser
22. ^ Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. coser