costa

Forms

costa f (plural costas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin costa (“rib, side, flank”), written Old Galician-Portuguese costa in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1] In later and Medieval Latin the word came to mean “edge” or “coast”.^[1] Nascentes explains the senses from the two Latin meanings: “rib” gave the plural sense “back”, where the ribs show most, which replaced Latin dorsum, and “side” gave “slope of a hill” and “land on the edge of the sea”.^[4]

The same Latin word is Galician costa, Spanish cuesta, Catalan costa, Occitan còsta, French côte, Italian costa and Romanian coastă.^[5][1] In Spanish the old plural also meant “back”, as in llevar a cuestas, and the sense “slope” is common to all the Romance languages.^[6][7]

De Vaan reconstructs *kostā- and finds the Latin word without a convincing etymology: the comparison with кость (kostĭ, “bone”) is unlikely, because the Slavic word probably goes back to a form that gives Latin os (“bone”).^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Latin charters already use the word: Lorenzo cites illa costa “the slope” in 1065 and in costa de uno boue “on the side of an ox” in 1070.^[9] In the 13th-century Cantigas de Santa Maria it appears in the plural, pelas costas “on the back” and de costas “on one's back”, and in the singular in de costa “to one side”.^[9] A cantiga d'escarnho by Alfonso X has con costa juso “on her back”.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

Cunha dates the plural sense “shoulders, back” and the sense “rib” to the 13th century, and “coast” to the 14th.^[3][2] The Crónica Troiana uses costas for the flank or rear of an army, and the Crónica de 1344 has per a costa do mar “along the coast of the sea”.^[9] The cantigas also have dar costas “to turn one's back, be indifferent”.^[10]

Cardoso's Portuguese–Latin dictionary of 1569 renders costa as clivus “slope”, and Bluteau's book of synonyms gives ladeira and outeiro.^[11][12] Morais (1789) defines it first as rising ground, and then as the land beside the sea, with the figurative phrases ir costa arriba “to go with difficulty” and costa abaixo “easily”.^[13] Aurélio marks the sense “rib” as obsolete, and records costa for the coast of Africa in general, as in pano da costa.^[14]

Timeline

• 1065 – a Latin charter has illa costa “the slope”.^[9]
• 1070 – in costa de uno boue “on the side of an ox”, in a Latin charter.^[9]
• 13th century – the plural costas “back” in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[9][3]
• 14th century – the sense “coast”;^[3][2][9] per a costa do mar in the Crónica de 1344.^[3][2][9]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary renders costa as Latin clivus “slope”.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais gives the senses “slope” and “seashore”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. coast: the land along the sea, the shore of a continent or island; litoral.^[2][15][1]
2. The part of the sea next to the land: O navio ficou fundeado perto da costa.^[2][15]
3. The bank of a river or lake.^[2]
4. A slope, encosta.^[2][14][15]
5. (anatomy) The back of the hand.^[2]
6. (zoology) The longitudinal vein that forms the front edge of an insect's wing.^[2]
7. (botany) A raised line on the surface of a plant organ; the midrib of a leaf.^[2][14]
8. (obsolete) A rib, costela.^[14]
9. (in the plural, costas) The back of the body, dorso; hence às costas “on one's back”, ter às costas “to be responsible for”.^[2][3]
10. (in the plural, costas) The back of an object, or the backrest of a chair or sofa.^[2]

Word family

• costado
• costela
• costeiro
• costear
• encostar
• acostar

Related words

• encosta
• Latin costa
• Spanish cuesta

Usage notes

Set phrases include dar à costa “to run aground”, ter as costas quentes “to feel safe under someone's protection” and apunhalar pelas costas “to betray”.^[2]

Houaiss has two other nouns costa, a variety of mango (1782) and a variety of apple (1899), both probably named after a person called Costa.^[2] The surname Costa itself is from costa “slope”, according to Nascentes.^[16]

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 n o Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. costa
3. ^ a b c d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. costa
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. costa
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2279
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 278
7. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cuesta
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. costa
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. costa
10. ^ a b 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. costa
11. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. costa
12. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. costa
13. ^ a b 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, 340
14. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. costa
15. ^ a b c 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. costa
16. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1952), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 2: Nomes próprios, Rio de Janeiro, p. s.v. costa