cottar, cotter
(ˈkɒtə(r))
[Partly ad. med.L. cotārius, f. cota cot; partly a later formation from cot n.1 + -ar3, -er1.]
1. Sometimes used to translate med.L. cotārius, applied in Domesday Book to a villein who occupied a cot or cottage with an attached piece of land (usually 5 acres) held by service of labour (with or without payment in produce or money).
Cotarius probably represented the OE. cotsǽta or cotset, cotsetla, and cotman, or at least, with the bordarius, included these. The distinction between the cotarius and the bordarius, bordar, or bordman, has not been satisfactorily determined; when both are mentioned together the bordarii are usually named before the cotarii, and the latter are much less numerous. In some cases, also, Domesday seems to distinguish coscez and cotarii: thus under the manor of Haseberie, Wiltshire, there are ‘xiii coscez, and ii cotar'.’ In Ellis's Abstract of Population in Domesday (II. 435–6), Devonshire has bordarii 4847..coscez 70, cotarii 19..servi 3294, villani 8070.
| [c 1086 Domesday Bk., Middlesex, St. Peter's (Du Cange), Unus Cotarius de 5 acris qui reddunt per annum 40 .sol. pro hortis suis.] 1809 Bawdwen tr. Domesday Bk. 135 Ilbert has now there 4 ploughs, and sixty small Burgesses and sixteen cottars, etc. 1874 Green Short Hist. v. 238 The cottar, the bordar, and the labourer were bound to aid in the work of the home-farm. |
2. Sc. A peasant who occupies a cot-house or cottage belonging to a farm (sometimes with a plot of land attached), for which he has (or had) to give or provide labour on the farm, at a fixed rate, when required. b. A peasant, esp. in the Highlands, who occupies a cottage and rents a small plot of land under a form of tenure similar to that of the Irish cottier.
| 1552 Abp. Hamilton Catech. 98 Quhay..puttis thair cottaris to ouir sair labouris. 1640–1 Kirkcudbr. War-Comm. Min. Bk. (1855) 53 The yeoman or cottar shall pey foure merks, for ilk failzie. 1679 Royal Procl. in Lond. Gaz. No. 1406/2 We hereby Require and Command all the Heretors and Masters of the said Shire of Fiffe and Kinrosse, to bring their Tenants, Cottars and Servants. 1754 Erskine Princ. Sc. Law (1809) 41 They have power to judge in questions of highways..to call out the tenants with their cottars and servants, to perform six days work yearly for upholding them. 1785 Burns (title), The Cotter's Saturday Night. 1786 ― Twa Dogs 72 A cotter howkin' in a sheugh, Wi' dirty stanes biggin' a dyke, Baring a quarry, and sic like. 1808–79 Jamieson Dict. Cottar, cotter, Persons of this description possess a house and small garden, or small piece of land, the rent of which they are bound to pay, either to a landlord or a farmer, by labour for a certain number of days, or at certain seasons... The service itself is still called bondage. 1884 Marquis of Lorne in Pall Mall G. 10 May 1/2 The crofter is a man having any small holding of land, and paying, in proportion to its size, from {pstlg}1 to {pstlg}30 of rent. A cottar is a man who as a rule has no land, and inhabits a hovel built by himself, paying perhaps five or ten shillings to the crofter for the use of a ‘rig’ or two of potatoes. He is the ‘con-acre’ man of Irish rural non-economy. |
3. Irish. = cottier 2.
| 1791 Bentham Panopt. i. 234 Among the Irish cottars..one room is the only receptacle for man, wife, children, dog and swine. 1863 Fawcett Pol. Econ. ii. i. 118 The farmers and labourers are merged into one class, like the miserable cotters of Ireland. 1883 S. C. Hall Retrospect II. 310 Picture the Irish cotter of fifty or sixty years ago. |
4. attrib. and Comb.
| a 1796 Burns Her Daddie Forbad ii, A vera gude tocher, a cotter-man's dochter. 1805 Forsyth Beauties Scotl. I. 507 A considerable extent of ground is annually manured in this county by what is called the cottar dung. 1808 Jamieson s.v. Cottar, Hence cotterman, cotterfouk, contemptuously cotter-bodies. 1815 Scott Guy M. viii, ‘Ye have riven the thack off seven cottar houses.’ 1818 Edin. Mag. Aug. 127 (Jam.) The residence of the farmer..is flanked by a cluster of villages; these constitute the cottar-town; the inhabitants are vassals to the farmer. 1860 G. H. K. Vac. Tour 157 A brighter specimen of cotter prosperity in the north. 1868 Peard Water-farm. xiii. 129 The smallest of conceivable cottar water-farms. |