cozer

Forms

cozer (first-person singular present cozo, first-person singular preterite cozi, past participle cozido)^[1] Houaiss records the 15th-century spelling quozer.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin coco (“to cook, boil”), the popular form of classical Latin coquo, written Old Galician-Portuguese cozer in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1] Corominas explains the popular form by analogy: the simplified first person singular and third person plural of the present spread to the whole verb, and the form, frequent in the glossaries, is the one every Romance language continues.^[5] Nascentes reports the same explanation from Meyer-Lübke.^[6]

The same Latin verb is Galician cocer, Spanish cocer, Catalan coure, French cuire, Italian cuocere and Romanian coace.^[7][1]

The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Italic *kʷekʷō and Proto-Indo-European *pekʷ- (“to cook, ripen”), with the first consonant assimilated to the second, as in quīnque.^[8][9] De Vaan names among its cognates Sanskrit पचति (pácati, “they cook”) and Ancient Greek πέσσω (péssō, “to cook, bake”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria have the verb for cooking meat and fish (Vai, coz / carn'e pescado “Go, cook meat and fish”), for boiling in cauldrons, and once intransitively for a wound that smarts: non dol nen coz “it neither aches nor burns”.^[10] Houaiss and Cunha both date the word to the 13th century.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The basic sense, preparing food by heat, has not changed since the medieval texts;^[10][11] Barbosa in 1611 gives cozinhar as its synonym.^[10][11] Bluteau defines it as preparing raw matter with the heat of the fire, for eating or for another use, and the sense of firing bricks, lime or pottery is listed by the old Caldas Aulete.^[12][13] Pereira in 1697 sends the reader from cozer to coser “to sew”, and Morais in 1813 takes care to separate the two verbs, which sound alike in most of Portugal and Brazil.^[14][15]

Figurative senses grew from the idea of slow heat: to digest, to bear something, and in Portugal cozer a bebedeira, to sleep off a bout of drinking.^[2][16][17] A dialect survey in Portugal recorded the verb for wine that is fermenting.^[18]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records, in the Cantigas de Santa Maria among others.^[2][3][10]
• 15th century – the spelling quozer.^[2]
• 1496 – the verb in the História de mui nobre Vespasiano.^[19]
• 15th century – first records of cozido and cozimento.^[3]
• 1611 – Barbosa glosses cozer with cozinhar and Latin coquo.^[11]
• 1697 – Pereira refers cozer to coser.^[14]
• 1712 – Bluteau defines the verb as preparing raw matter with the heat of the fire.^[12]
• 1813 – Morais separates cozer “to cook on the fire” from coser “to sew with a needle”; first record of cozedura.^[15][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cook food by heat, especially by boiling it in water; cozinhar: Deixa as batatas a cozer mais dez minutos.^[2][20][1]
2. To bake or fire a material so that it hardens: to fire bricks, tiles or pottery, to burn lime.^[20][13]
3. (rare) To digest food.^[2][17]
4. (figurative) To bear, put up with;^[16][17][21] cozer a bebedeira, to sleep until drunkenness wears off.^[16][17][21]
5. (intransitive) To work as a cook.^[17]
6. (figurative) To lose or make lose freshness and bloom.^[17][22]

Word family

• cozedura
• cozido
• cozimento
• pré-cozer

Related words

• cozinha
• Latin coquo
• Galician cocer

Usage notes

Cozer “to cook” and coser “to sew” are pronounced alike in most varieties, and the dictionaries warn against confusing them.^[13][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cozer
3. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cozer
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. cozer
5. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 109
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. s.v. cozer
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2212
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. coquo
10. ^ 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. cozer
11. ^ a b c Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cozer
12. ^ 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. cozer
13. ^ a b c 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. cozer
14. ^ a b Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cozer
15. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 490
16. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 2541
17. ^ a b c d e f g Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. cozer
18. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. cozer
19. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. cozer
20. ^ 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. cozer
21. ^ a b 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. cozer
22. ^ Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. cozer