coco

• cocoa (now nonstandard)

From Portuguese/Spanish coco (“grinning face”) (due to the three holes in the shell resembling a human face).^[1] Doublet of coque.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkəʊ.kəʊ/

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• (US) enPR: kōʹkō, IPA^(key): /ˈkoʊ.koʊ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊkəʊ
• Homophone: cocoa
• Hyphenation: co‧co

coco (plural cocos or cocoes)

1. Coconut palm.
   • 1992, Frances Temple, Taste of Salt: A Story of Modern Haiti‎^[1], page 52:

     I turn round and round to see the high mountains, the thick coco trees.

2. Coconut, the fruit of the coconut palm.
   • 1625, Samuel Purchas, “Their Cocos and other fruits and food, their Trades and trading, Creatures profitable and hurtfull. Of Male their principall Iland. Their Houſes, Candou, Languages, Apparell.”, in Pvrchas his Pilgrimes. In Five Bookes. [...] The Second Part., volume II, London: Printed by William Stansby for Henrie Fetherstone, and are to be sold at his shop in Pauls Church-yard at the signe of the Rose, →OCLC, page 1643 [sic: 1653]:

     They boyle it alſo, and after dry it and bray it, and of this bran, with egges, hony, milke, and butter of Cocos, they make Florentines, and verie good belly-timber.

   • 1813, John Adams, “A Voyage to South America”, in John Pinkerton, editor, A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and Travels in All Parts of the World‎^[2], page 355:

     The coco is a very common fruit, and but little esteemed; […]

   • 2007, Darwin Porter, Danforth Prince, Frommer's Caribbean 2008‎^[3], →ISBN, page 468:

     You might opt for a heaping tower composed of fried oysters, coco-flavored shrimp, fried octopus, and calamari.

• coco-de-mer

• cocoa (cacao, altered by confusion with coco)

From Proto-Austronesian *susu. Compare Indonesian susu, Fijian sucu, Tagalog suso, Tongan huhu and Hawaiian ū.

• IPA^(key): /tsu.tsu/

coco

1. (anatomy) breast

“Entry #”, in 阿美語中部方言辭典 [Dictionary of the Central Dialect of Amis]‎^[4] (in Chinese), Taiwan: Council of Indigenous Peoples, 2021

Borrowed from Spanish coco.

• IPA^(key): (Central) [ˈko.ku]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic, Valencia) [ˈko.ko]

• Audio:

  (file)

coco m (plural cocos)

1. coconut

• cocotar
• cocoter

• “coco”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007

• IPA^(key): /ko.ko/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -o

From Middle French coche, coco, from Italian cocco and Spanish coco, both from Portuguese coco. The fruit was originally referred to by the Spanish equivalent of croque-mitaine (“bogeyman”), due to the spooky face-like appearance of the three dots at the end of the shell, which developed in coco.

As in English, the fruit was originally referred to as coco (in the 16th century), but in the 17th (as in English) it became usual to refer to it as a nut, in the form noix de coco (“coconut”).

coco m (plural cocos)

1. Fruit of the coconut palm, also called noix de coco
2. a kind of bean
3. (slang) Motor fuel

   Synonym: carburant

4. (dated) a type of licorice drink, by analogy with coconut milk

• (bean): haricot

• lait de coco
• noix de coco

Duplication of initial co-, from communiste.

coco m (plural cocos)

1. (informal) Commie

Duplication of initial co-, from cocaïne.

coco f (plural cocos)

1. (slang) cocaine

Perhaps by contraction of cocorico (“cock-a-doodle-do”).

coco m (plural cocos)

1. (informal, dated, childish) egg

   Synonym: œuf

coco m or f by sense (plural cocos)

1. (informal) friendly, joking term for a friend; pal, mate, buddy

   Salut, coco !

   G’day mate!

2. (informal, derogatory) aggressive, disdainful term of address, usually preceded by mon, ma, or mes. Roughly punk or buddy, as in “You wanna try, punk?”, or “Hey buddy, what do you think you’re doing?”

   Toi, mon coco, tu vas passer un sale quart d’heure !

   You, buddy, are going to have a miserable quarter hour!

   Vous ne perdez rien pour attendre, mes cocos !

   You’re not losing anything by waiting, punks!

• “coco”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From Latin coccum (“berry; gall; insect; scarlet dye”), from Ancient Greek κόκκος (kókkos, “grain, seed, berry”).^[1]

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɔko/ [ˈkɔ.kʊ]
  • Rhymes: -ɔko
• IPA^(key): /ˈkoko/ [ˈko.kʊ]
  • Rhymes: -oko
• Hyphenation: co‧co

coco m (plural cocos)

1. bogeyman
2. oak gall
3. coconut
4. bug; worm

   Synonyms: becho, bicho, verme

• coco de luz (“glowworm”)

• Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, editor (2006–2013), “coco”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega [Dictionary of Dictionaries of the Galician language] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, Ernesto Xosé González Seoane, María Álvarez de la Granja, editors (2003–2018), “coco”, in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Rosario Álvarez Blanco, editor (2014–2024), “coco”, in Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega, →ISSN

cocō (present infinitive cocere, perfect active coxī, supine coctum); third conjugation (Late Latin)

1. alternative form of coquō (“cook”) (attested from the third century CE)^[1]

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈkɔ.koː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈkɔː.ko]

cocō

1. dative/ablative singular of cocus

• “coco”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• "coco", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)

coco

1. Romanization of ᠴᠣᠴᠣ (coco)

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.) Compare French coco.

coco m (plural cocos)

1. (Jersey, informal) egg, eggy

• cocotchi (“eggcup”)

Probably from Late Latin coccum (“kernel, seed”), from Ancient Greek κόκκος (kókkos). Doublet of coque.

• côco (pre-reform spelling or misspelling)

• Rhymes: -oku
• Hyphenation: co‧co

• Audio (Brazil):

  (file)

coco m (plural cocos)

1. coconut (fruit of coco palm)
2. (informal) head
3. (informal, vulgar) testicle
4. (Brazil, dance) popular dance from Alagoas
   • 1957, “Que coco é esse”, performed by Marinês:

     Que coco é esse / Eu já estou com vontade de dançar

     What a coconut dance this is / I'm already in the mood to dance

• → English: coco
• → Italian: cocco
  • → Middle French: coche
    • French: coco
• → Spanish: coco, coca, cucuy, cuco, cuca, cucu, cucuí
  • → English: coco
  • → Middle French: coco
    • French: coco

Learned borrowing from New Latin coccus, from Late Latin coccum, from Ancient Greek κόκκος (kókkos).

• Rhymes: -ɔku
• Hyphenation: co‧co

• Audio (Brazil):

  (file)

coco m (plural cocos)

1. (bacteriology) coccus

Borrowed from Japanese 石 (koku).

• Rhymes: -ɔku
• Hyphenation: co‧co

coco m (plural cocos)

1. (historical) koku

• “coconut”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.

• “coco”, in Dicionário infopédia da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2025
• “coco”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2025

• IPA^(key): /ˈkoko/ [ˈko.ko]

• Audio (Colombia):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -oko
• Syllabification: co‧co

From sense 2 (“skull, head”), because of the resemblance of the fruit to a grinning face.

coco m (plural cocos)

1. coconut
2. (colloquial, Chile) testicle
3. (colloquial, Peru) US dollars

• → English: coco
• → Middle French: coco
  • French: coco

Borrowed from Portuguese côco (“bogeyman, grinning face”), probably from Latin coccum (“kernel, seed”).

• coca, cucuy, cuco, cuca, cucu, cucuí

coco m (plural cocos)

2. (folklore) bogeyman

   Synonym: hombre del saco

   • Duérmete niño, duérmete ya… que viene el coco y te comerá.

     Sleep child, sleep now… lest the bogeyman come and eat you.

3. (colloquial) brain; head

From Latin coccum.

coco m (plural cocos)

1. (entomology) weevil

   Synonym: gorgojo

2. (bacteriology) coccus

   Synonym: micrococo

3. (Dominican Republic) Wood stork (Mycteria americana)

• “coco”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024
• Roberts, Edward A. (2014) A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Spanish Language with Families of Words based on Indo-European Roots, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN