coxa

Forms

coxa f (plural coxas)^[1] Medieval texts write coxa, coixa and coyxa, and the 15th century also couxa.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin coxa (“hip”), written Old Galician-Portuguese coixa and Old Galician-Portuguese coyxa in medieval texts.^[2][4][1] The Latin word meant the hip of a person or the haunch of an animal;^[5][6][7] Nascentes notes that its sense moved down the leg.^[5][6][7] In the Romance languages it means the thigh almost everywhere, and it replaced the classical femur in that sense.^[8][9] Williams explains the old form: the vowel before the Latin ⟨x⟩ gave ⟨oi⟩, and in modern Portuguese the /i/ was absorbed by the following /ʃ/.^[10][11] Priberam alone takes the noun as the feminine of coxo.^[12]

The same Latin word is Galician coxa, Catalan cuixa, French cuisse, Italian coscia and Romanian coapsă.^[8][1] Old Castilian also had Old Spanish coxa, and Spanish cuja keeps the word only in other senses.^[13][14]

The Latin word goes back to Proto-Italic *koksā and Proto-Indo-European *kóḱseh₂, from *koḱs- (“joint, limb”).^[1][5] It is cognate with Old Irish cos (“foot, leg”) and Welsh coes (“leg, shank”).^[1] Latin derived from it coxendīx (“hip”) and coxus (“lame”), the source of the adjective.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Crónica Troiana has deulle tal ferida por çima da coyxa “he gave him such a wound above the thigh”, and the Miragres de Santiago Et a perna cõ a coyxa todo me secou “and my leg with the thigh withered completely”.^[3][15] García de Diego quotes As coixas e as pernas from Mestre Giraldo's Livro d'Alveitaria.^[13]

Semantic evolution

Cardoso (1569) glosses the word with Latin femur.^[16] Morais (1789) also records coxa for a piece of armour on which the knight rested the butt of his lance.^[17] Silva Bastos (1912) lists the pear varieties coxa-de-dama and coxa-de-freira.^[18]

Zoology uses it for the first segment of an arthropod's leg.^[2] The thigh of an animal is also a cut of meat, the drumstick of a bird.^[19][1] In Brazilian football slang a coxa is a supporter of the Coritiba club, from coxa-branca.^[2][1]

Timeline

• 14th century – first record; the Crónica Troiana writes coyxa.^[2][4][3]
• 15th century – the spelling couxa.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses Coxa as Latin femur.^[16]
• 1789 – Morais records the armour sense.^[17]
• 1881 – first record of coxalgia.^[4]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos lists coxa-de-dama and coxa-de-freira.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. The thigh, the part of the leg between the hip and the knee, whose bone is the fêmur.^[2][20][1]
2. The thigh of an animal as food; a drumstick.^[19][1]
3. (zoology) The coxa, the basal segment of the leg of an arthropod.^[2][1]
4. (Brazil, football, informal) A supporter of the Coritiba club; also as an adjective.^[2][20]

Word family

• coxal
• coxão
• coxinha
• coxudo
• encoxar
• coxa-branca
• coxalgia

Related words

• coxim
• coxo
• Latin coxa
• French cuisse

Usage notes

Nas coxas and em cima da(s) coxa(s) mean “hastily, carelessly”.^[2][20] The spelling is also the feminine of the adjective coxo “lame”.^[21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. coxa
3. ^ a b c 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. coyxa
4. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. coxa
5. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. coxa
7. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. coxa
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2291
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. cuisse
10. ^ Williams, Edwin B. (1938), From Latin to Portuguese: Historical Phonology and Morphology of the Portuguese Language, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, p. § 37.3A
11. ^ Williams, Edwin B. (1938), From Latin to Portuguese: Historical Phonology and Morphology of the Portuguese Language, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, p. § 92.9
12. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. coxa
13. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. coxa
14. ^ 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. cuja
15. ^ 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. coxa
16. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. coxa
17. ^ 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, 344
18. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. coxa
19. ^ a b 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. coxa
20. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. coxa
21. ^ Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. coxa