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coș

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Etymology and origin of the Romanian word coș

coș1 basket; chimney

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1504–1507 Slavonic–Romanian documents
Borrowed from
Old Church Slavonic кошь
Ultimate origin
Proto-Slavic *košь

Forms

coș n (plural coșuri)[1]

Etymology

The word for the basket is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic кошь (košĭ, “basket”).[2][3][4][5][1] The Old Church Slavonic word comes from Proto-Slavic *košь, continued in Bulgarian кош (koš), Slovak kôš and Polish kosz.[1][6] The DA adds that the Slavic word also passed into Hungarian kas and Albanian kosh;[7][8] Albanian took it from Serbian or Bulgarian.[7][8]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian coș and Megleno-Romanian coș.[3] DELR attributes the regional sense “granary” to the influence of coșar.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the plural coșure in the Slavonic–Romanian documents of 1504–1507.[2][9] In the psalters it occurs from Coresi's psalter of 1570 (Psalm 80:5), meaning a basket.[10][4]

Semantic evolution

From the woven basket the name passed to many things made of wickerwork or shaped like a basket: a fish trap, a beehive, the body of a cart, the hopper of a mill, the box of a press, a bark container for cheese or strawberries, and the folding hood of a carriage.[3][9] Neculce has fortifications made „cu metereze și cu coșuri” “with trenches and gabions”.[9] In Wallachia it came to mean the chimney, and coșul pieptului is the ribcage.[9][5] DELR adds the hoop of basketball.[2]

Hungarian and Serbo-Croatian loans joined the family: coșară “basket” is from Hungarian kosár or Serbo-Croatian košar, and coșniță “small basket; beehive” from Old Church Slavonic košĭnica or Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian košnica.[2][3]

Timeline

  • 1504–1507 – the plural coșure in Slavonic–Romanian documents, the first record.[2][9]
  • 1570 – coș in Coresi's psalter.[10]
  • 1582 – coșniță in the Palia de la Orăștie.[2]
  • c. 1650 – coșcior and coșară in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis.[2]
  • 1688 – coș and coșuri in the Bucharest Bible (Genesis 40:16–18).[11][9]
  • 1691–1697 – coșar “basket maker; chimney sweep” and coșuleț in Corbea's dictionary.[2]
  • 1814 – coșărit, a tax paid on each chimney.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A basket of wicker, rushes, raffia and the like, with or without handles; its contents.[5] A arunca la coș is to throw away as worthless;[5][4][1] coș de gunoi is a wastebasket.[5][4][1]
  2. A wicker fish trap.[5][2]
  3. (basketball) The metal hoop with a bottomless net; a point scored through it.[5][2]
  4. The hopper of a small mill; the feed funnel of a threshing machine; the box of a press.[5]
  5. A wicker frame set in a cart in place of the side ladders, for carrying small things.[5]
  6. The folding leather or canvas hood of a carriage.[5][9]
  7. (anatomy) coșul pieptului “the thorax”;[5] (regional) a fi rupt în coș “to be starving”.[5]
  8. A chimney; the flue of a heating plant.[5][1]

Word family

  • coșar
  • coșuleț
  • coșcior
  • coșoi
  • coșerie
  • coșărit

coș2 pimple

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1688 Bucharest Bible
Inherited from
Latin cossus
Ultimate origin
Latin cossus

Forms

coș n (plural coșuri)[1] The plural is also masculine coși: „Cu sângele (liliacului) se ung pe negi și pe coși” “with the bat's blood they anoint warts and pimples”.[9][5]

Etymology

The word for the pimple is inherited from Latin cossus (“larva under the bark of trees”).[3][2][4][5][1][12] Philippide first proposed it.[3][7] The singular was remade from the plural, and DELR explains the plural variant ⟨coji⟩ as a confusion with coajă.[3][2] The origin of the Latin word is uncertain.[1]

Its Romance cognates are Italian cosso (“pimple, wart”) and French cosson (“grain weevil”).[3][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Bucharest Bible of 1688, at Leviticus 13:39.[9][4][2]

Semantic evolution

Its old meaning was the larva of the warble fly, a white worm that lives under the skin of cattle, and the swelling it causes; from there it came to mean a pimple on a person's face or body.[2][4] The word is in general use except in the Banat.[3]

Timeline

  • 1688 – in the Bucharest Bible (Leviticus 13:39), the first record.[2][13]
  • 1837 – coșos “pimply”.[2]
  • 1871 – coși “to break out in pimples” in Laurian and Massim.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A pimple: a small spot full of pus on the face or body.[5][1]
  2. (dated) The larva of the warble fly that lives under the skin of cattle; the swelling it causes.[4][2]

Word family

  • coșos
  • coșniță
  • coșară
  • coșarcă

Usage notes

DEX and DELR list two more homographs.[2] Coș³, an obsolete Moldavian word for a Tatar camp, recorded from 1675 in Miron Costin, is from Polish kosz and Ukrainian, of Tatar origin.[2][9][4] Coș⁴, often repeated, is a call to keep a goat still during milking, recorded from 1901, with the variant cuș.[2][4] DELR and Ciorănescu think it probably expressive; the DA proposed German kusch “lie down!”, and Graur a Serbian word for goat.[2][3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. coș
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. coș
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 523
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 242
  6. ^ Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 4, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 240
  7. ^ a b c Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. coș
  8. ^ a b Demiraj, Bardhyl (ed.), Digitales philologisch-etymologisches Wörterbuch des Albanischen, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, p. s.v. kosh
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. coș
  10. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 80:5
  11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Gen 40:17
  12. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2278
  13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Lev 13:39

Related etymologies

  • prea · also from Old Church Slavonic
  • înșela · also from Old Church Slavonic
  • pară · also from Old Church Slavonic
  • somn · also from Old Church Slavonic
  • veste · also from Old Church Slavonic
  • lin · also from Old Church Slavonic
  • râs · also from Old Church Slavonic
  • suci · also from Old Church Slavonic
Cite this entry

“Coș.” Etymologically, 11 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/ro/co%C8%99. Accessed 11 Nov. 2026.

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