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Q. cöa n. “house; outhouse, shed, hut, booth; building used for a dwelling or other purposes; †body” (Category: House)

Q. cöa, n. “house; outhouse, shed, hut, booth; building used for a dwelling or other purposes; †body” (Category: House)
ᴱQ. os “cottage, house”

The most general Quenya word for “house” or small building derived from √KAW “shelter” (PE17/107; VT47/35; WJ/369). As Tolkien described it in notes from the late 1960s:

From √KAW was made the simple primitive form *kawā > Q koa, applied to any “shelter” (contrived and not natural) temporary or in Aman more often permanent, and applied to what we might call outhouses, huts, sheds, booths (PE17/108).

In another note from this period:

As the simple name of a building used for a dwelling or other purposes Quenya used koa, a derivative of √KAW “shelter” (PE17/165).

Thus coa could be used for a “house” as a dwelling place but also for other kinds of small buildings as well. For an inhabited dwelling, Q. mar(da) might be more appropriate.

In some places Tolkien use coa to refer (metaphorically) to a body, as in cöacalina “light of the house” referring to a spirit within a body (MR/250), as well as the phrase: Valar ar Maiar fantaner nassentar fanainen ve quenderinwe koar al larmar “Valar and Maiar cloaked their true-being in fanar [veils], like to Elvish bodies [koar = houses] and raiment” (PE17/175).

References ✧ PE17/107-108, 164, 174-175, 177; VT47/35; VT49/23; WJ/369

Glosses

Variations

Related

Inflections

köarya 3rd-sg-poss “the house of him” ✧ WJ/369
koaryanna 3rd-sg-poss allative “his house” ✧ VT49/23
koaron genitive plural “of bodies” ✧ PE17/174
koainen instrumental plural “with bodies” ✧ PE17/174
koar plural “bodies” ✧ PE17/175; PE17/177

Element In

Cognates

Derivations

Phonetic Developments

KAW > koa [kawa] > [koa] ✧ PE17/107
kawā > koa [kawā] > [koa] ✧ PE17/108
KAW > koa [kawa] > [koa] ✧ PE17/164
kawa > koa [kawa] > [koa] ✧ VT47/35