Line drawing of kuseno
Coloured illustration of kuseno
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Translation

cushion, pillow

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Word origin

From French coussin. The older history is genuinely disputed, and the two standard accounts are given below rather than blended into one confident guess.

Origin
French
Root
coussin
English cognates
cushion

Other proposed origins

  • Most dictionaries derive coussin from a Vulgar Latin coxinum, from coxa, 'hip' - the thing you rest your hip on. (Latin, coxa)
  • Others trace it to Latin culcita, 'mattress, bolster', with the sound change running through Old French. (Latin, culcita)

Examples

.

Put the pillow on the bed.

.

The cushion is very soft.

.

He slept with two pillows under his head.

No suffix, and the false one looks official. The shape -o invites a decomposition, and the temptation is doubled because (to lie down) is a real root that a pillow plainly has something to do with. Resist both. There is no -- suffix in Esperanto - the official affix list has --, --, --, --, -er-, --, and stops. And kuƝ- is spelled with the hat: kuƝeno would be a different word entirely. - is one borrowed unit from French, and its resemblance to is an accident of sound that happens to be semantically flattering.

Cushion and pillow are the same word. English splits them by where they live - a pillow is for a head in bed, a cushion for a backside on a sofa - and Esperanto does not. covers both, and if you need the distinction you build it: kapkuseno for the head one, sidkuseno for the sitting one. This collapsing is very typical of the language, and the right instinct when you feel a missing distinction is to compound rather than to hunt for a second root.

Around the bed. Lito, dormi, for the bedspread, littuko for a sheet, and o for the pillowcase, using the -- of a holder. Mola is the adjective it wants; a hard one is malmola, and if it has gone properly stiff you want rigida, further down this same rank band.

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Esperanto · Free printables

kuseno: worksheet, infographic and listicle

Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "kuseno" (cushion, pillow): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.

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This word is taught in chapter 23, lesson 11: kuseno, interalie, instituto and 7 more words.