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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

coast.

The edge of the land where it meets an ocean, sea, gulf, bay, or large lake.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/kəʊst/Received-Pronunciation/koʊst/General-American/kəʉst/Australia/kɐʉst/New-Zealand
  1. The edge of the land where it meets an ocean, sea, gulf, bay, or large lake.

    The rocky coast of Maine has few beaches.
    a town on the coast of Trinidad
  2. The side or edge of something.

    obsolete
  3. A region of land; a district or country.

    obsolete
  4. A region of the air or heavens.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle English coste (“rib; side of the body”), from Old French coste (“rib; side of an object; coast”) (modern French côte (“rib; coast; hill, slope”)), from Latin costa (“rib; side, wall”). Doublet of costa. Compare typologically cape < Latin caput, ness (akin to nose), Bulgarian нос (nos, “nose; …; cape, promontory, foreland, gore”), Macedonian ’рт (’rt), Serbo-Croatian рт (“cape, promontory, headland”) < Proto-Slavic *rъtъ (whence Russian рот (rot)).

verb/kəʊst/Received-Pronunciation/koʊst/General-American/kəʉst/Australia/kɐʉst/New-Zealand
  1. To glide along without adding energy; to allow a vehicle to continue moving forward after disengaging the engine or ceasing to apply motive power.

    intransitive
    When I ran out of gas, fortunately I managed to coast into a nearby gas station.
  2. To sail along a coast.

    intransitive
  3. To make a minimal effort; to continue to do something in a routine way, without initiative or effort.

    figuratively · intransitive
  4. To draw near to; to approach; to keep near, or by the side of.

    intransitive · obsolete
  5. To sail by or near; to follow the coastline of.

    obsolete · transitive
  6. To conduct along a coast or river bank.

    obsolete · transitive
  7. To slide downhill; to slide on a sled upon snow or ice.

    Canada · US · dialectal
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Latin costa Latin costicāreder. Old French costoierbor. Middle English costeien English coast From Middle English costeien (“to travel along a border or coast; to go alongside (something), skirt; to accompany, follow; to travel across, traverse; to be adjacent to, to border;”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman [Term?], Old French costoier (“to be at the side of”) […] (modern French côtoyer (“to pass alongside; (figuratively) to rub shoulders”)), from Latin costicāre, from Latin costa (“rib; side, wall”); see further at etymology 1.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.