Coast

How to spell coast

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce coast

What does coast mean?

1. nounThe land bordering the sea; the shoreline of a country or region.
2. verbTo move smoothly along, especially without using power or effort.

Coast in a sentence

• noun

  They bought a small cottage on the south coast.

• verb

  With the engine off, the car began to coast down the hill.

• noun

  The storm battered the entire coast overnight.

• verb

  She let the bicycle coast to a gentle stop at the gate.

Where does coast come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin costa, which literally meant 'rib', and by extension 'the side or flank' of something. In Late Latin and the Romance languages the sense drifted from the side of a body to the side of a landmass, so the edge of land where it met the sea came to be called its 'side'. English borrowed it through the Old French coste during the 1300s, at first meaning the border, margin, or side of any region before settling firmly on the seashore. The same costa root survives in 'coastal' and in the anatomical word 'costal', meaning relating to the ribs, and in the Spanish place name Costa, as in Costa Rica ('rich coast'). The verb sense of gliding effortlessly, as down a slope or along a shore, grew later from the idea of running along the side or edge.

How the word is built

• coast (from Latin costa: rib, side, flank)