Ichneutymon #4: Coast

I don’t know about you, but growing up in Oregon, we never went “to the beach,” but we were always going to the coast. I wonder if that’s a uniquely Oregonian thing. I honestly don’t know.

I like the word “coast” a lot. When I was growing up, I remember “Coast to Coast” hardware being a thing (I think it was a chain). We also talk of one “coasting” in a car, or a bike, as they let gravity kick in and don’t accelerate down a hill or whatever. I just looked it up, and “coast” in this sense has the root idea of travelling along the coast, but is a more figurative meaning.

On to the etymology: “coast” comes from Latin costa, -ae, f., which means “rib,” but can also mean “side, wall” (Vergil actually uses it in Aeneid 2 to refer to the sides of the Trojan Horse, cf. 2.16). The word takes on a more figurative meaning referring to the “side” of the land right against the sea. I also remember driving into the mountains a kid to go skiing in Oregon, and there was one particular body of water which had a very “ribbed” look to its coast, so that cements the idea of coast < costa for me, personally. Spanish takes costa to mean “coast” more literally, and there’s also French côte (e.g. Côte d’Ivoire or the “Ivory Coast”) (note the circumflex over the o hides the original “s”; cf hôtel from older hostel, hôpital for hospital, &c.).

We also have the adjective “coastal,” but I don’t know a lot of other words relating to this. A more literal (ha) word for “coast” or “seashore” is lit[t]us, -oris, n., whence we get the English adjective littoral (= Lat. lit[t]oralis, -e). If you’ve ever read the first few lines of the Aeneid, you’ll see this right away: 1.2-3 Lauiniaque uenit / litora, “[Aeneas] came to the Lavinian shores”).

I thought I’d have more for this particular word, but oh well, it’s OK. I just find it really interesting that “coast” comes from the Latin word for “rib.” Etymology gets real strange if you dig deep enough! Thanks for reading, friends <3

• Ichneutymon
• Latin
• Etymology