Etymograph

English

coulee

Coulee comes from French coulée ‘flow’, from Latin cōlō ‘filter, strain, purify’, and ultimately from cōlum.

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcōlum‘colander, strainer’
  2. Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEcōlōas cōlāre‘filter, strain, purify’
  3. Frenchc. 1600–presentcouler‘to flow’
  4. French, derivedc. 1600–presentcoulée‘flow’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1907coulee

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

Lineage

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcōlum‘colander, strainer’
  2. Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEcōlōas cōlāre‘filter, strain, purify’
  3. Frenchc. 1600–presentcouler‘to flow’
  4. French, derivedc. 1600–presentcoulée‘flow’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1907coulee

Earliest quotation: 1907, Daniel Everett Willard, The Story of the Prairies: “[…] Mauvaise Coulee enters Devils Lake from the north,…”

Linked words

through Latin cōlō ‘filter, strain, purify’

culture, cultural, colony, cult, kultur, 72 more

Today it means

noun A stream, especially one in the western US or Canada, generally smaller than a bayou; it may (or may not) run dry in summer, may be sluggish, shallow, and wide (forming in effect a pond or slough), or may have formerly cut a deep gulch or ravine, but at present run dry.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Latin cōlum / coulee

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