cot

Note: Alongside Old English cot is cote, a feminine weak noun (see cote entry 1). The Dictionary of Old English and Middle English Dictionary collapse the entries for the two words, and, in fact, it is not always possible to assign inflected forms to one or the other. The Oxford English Dictionary, on the other hand, keeps them separate, though it notes that definite attestations of cot are very meager between Old English and early Modern English. The lemma for the words in the Dictionary of Old English is cott, cotte, but the geminate spellings only occur in the Lindisfarne Gospels, and would seem to be of purely graphic significance. The sense "bedchamber" (translating Latin cubile and cubiculum) occurs only in the Lindisfarne and Rushworth Gospels. — The Germanic noun appears to be the zero-grade form of a root attested in other grades, as suggested by G. Kroonen (Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic) and elsewhere; compare Old English cyte "monastic cell, shepherd's hut" (for *cīete), central German regional/dialect Kötze "basket for carrying on the shoulders, pannier," Norwegian køyta "wickerwork hut" (from *kautjōn-?); central German Kietze, Kitze "bark container, pannier" (from *keutja/ō-?). (Kroonen also adduces Kiez/Kietz, originally "place where fishermen live," now "district of a city, red-light district," but as this word was native to northeastern Germany, a source with High German consonantism is unlikely.) Comparisons beyond Germanic are uncertain. If proto-Finno-Ugric *kota is relevant (compare Finnish kota "hut, house," Hungarian ház "house"), a European substratal origin is possible, though its introduction into Germanic would have to postdate Grimm's law.