--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:
>
> Any chance that word is related to cott, cottage?
> or to Spanish coto "enclosure"?
>
As to English cot (and cottage), the consensus seems to be about a
Germanic origin (cf. Dutch and Icelandic kot, hut). It may be somehow
related to the (also presumably Germanic) Old English cot (and German
kotte/kutte ), both meaning 'coarse mantle' ---whence English coat,
Low Latin cot(t)a, French cotte, Spanish cota (and Catalan 'cotilla',
a woman's corset).
As to the Spanish coto/cota, there are at least four different roots
involved here:
a) the cot- of cottage (=hut), also seen in French coterie and Spanish
cotilla (a gossiping woman) and cotilleo (gossip)
b) the cot- of coat, seen in Spanish cota (a word of Middle Age
echoes, now generally contextualized by adding 'de malla')
c) Latin quota, as seen in cota, meaning "altitude" or "price level"
(in standard topography and stock exchange contexts, respectively)
d) Latin cautum, which originally meant 'a caution, guarantee' (from
cave:re, protect, preeempt) and later 'reserved area' (= Spanish coto).
So, Spanish 'coto' is not originally a term denoting 'enclosure' but a
Roman legal term eventually designing an object (the 'guaranteed
property' in this case), in a way that parallels Latin quinta (= a
fifth part) and Romance finca (= what remains [after dividing a
legacy]), both of which now mean a (generally rural) private property
("quinta", "finca") in Spanish, like "coto" (though the latter is
generally assumed not to contain a house, as the other two are, but
rather to have hunting or livestock applications).