coadă

Forms

coadă f (plural cozi)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin cōda (“tail”), the popular form of Latin cauda.^[2][3][4][1] DER and DELR cite Pușcariu, Candrea–Densusianu and the REW for this etymon, which DELR calls pan-Romance.^[2][3][5] The DA notes that the popular Latin form was kept in every Romance language.^[6] De Vaan reconstructs a Proto-Italic form meaning “part, tail” and connects the Latin word with the root of cūdō, the tail being the loose “part” of the animal.^[7]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian coadã, Megleno-Romanian coadă and Istro-Romanian codę.^[3][2][8][9] Its Romance cognates include Italian coda, Old French coe (modern queue), Old Spanish coa and Spanish and Portuguese cola.^[2] The sense “queue of people” follows the French word.^[3] Ciorănescu compares the phrase coada ochiului “the corner of the eye” with Italian la coda dell'occhio.^[2] The derivative codaș was borrowed into Ukrainian in the sense “the last one; poor”.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is recorded first as a personal name in the Slavonic–Romanian documents, in 1503 according to DELR and 1505 according to Tiktin.^[3][10] MDA2's first record is the Moldavian law code of Vasile Lupu, the Pravila, in the sense “tail of an animal”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

From the tail of an animal the word spread to other things that hang behind or at the end: a plait of hair, the stalk of a fruit or leaf, the train of a garment, the handle of a tool, and the end or last part of anything.^[2][11] The sense “line of people waiting” was added later, after French queue.^[3] Old texts also have a plural coade, as in a law code: „de-aciia-l leagă de coadele cailor” “then they tie him to the horses' tails”.^[10][4]

Romanian made a large family from the word.^[2] Codaș “left behind, last” is recorded from 1799, codan “long-tailed; a young girl old enough to marry” from 1851, and the compound codalb “white-tailed; fair-haired” from about 1650.^[3] Ciorănescu takes codălat “long-tailed” as a Romanian derivative with an expressive l, against the views that it is a compound with lat or continues a Latin diminutive.^[2]

Timeline

• 1503 – a personal name in a Slavonic–Romanian document, the first record.^[3]
• c. 1650 – the derivatives coadeș “long-tailed” and codalb “white-tailed”.^[3]
• 1660 – coadă in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, glossing Slavonic words for “tail”.^[12]
• 1688 – coadă in the Bucharest Bible (Exodus 4:4).^[13]
• 1799 – codaș “left behind, last”.^[3]
• 1851 – codan “long-tailed; a girl of marriageable age”.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The tail of a vertebrate animal, or the hair or feathers on it.^[11][4][1]
2. Long hair worn in a plait or tress.^[11][1]
3. The stalk of a fruit, leaf or flower.^[11][2]
4. The train of a dress or other garment.^[11]
5. The handle of a tool or object: coada toporului “the handle of the axe”.^[11]
6. The end or last part of something.^[11][1]
7. A queue of people waiting their turn: Am stat două ore la coadă.^[11][1]

Word family

• codat
• coadeș
• codaș
• codaci
• codan
• codană
• codiriște
• codi
• codină
• codălat
• codalb

Related words

• codobatură
• Aromanian coadã
• Latin cauda

Usage notes

Many idioms use the word: a da din coadă “to fawn on someone”, cu coada între picioare “with one's tail between one's legs”, a trage mâța de coadă “to be hard up”.^[11] In compounds it names plants, such as coada-calului “horsetail”.^[11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. coadă
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. coadă
4. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 442
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1774
6. ^ 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. coadă
7. ^ 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. cauda
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 299
9. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 73
10. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. coadă
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 198
12. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. coadă
13. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Exodus 4:4