Word.ws English Dictionary

cotta

cotta noun: a surplice, in England and America usually one shorter and less full than the ordinary surplice and with short sleeves, or sometimes none. Also the alternative form of katha.

Noun

cotta (plural cottas)

  1. A surplice, in England and America usually one shorter and less full than the ordinary surplice and with short sleeves, or sometimes none.
    • She wore a short surcoat of scarlet, cut low around the shoulders, sleeveless, reaching just below her hips, like the tabards worn by medieval heralds. Over it she wore a laced-edged cotta.1965, Attila Zohar, Kings Cross Black Magic, Sydney: Horwitz Publications, page 25
    • ‘The confidence of the very rich,’ thought Father Carter watching Binkie shaking out albs and cottas and calling rather loudly to the organist.1978, Jane Gardam, God on the Rocks, Abacus, published 2014, page 131
  2. A kind of coarse woolen blanket.

Proper noun capitalized: Cotta

Cotta

  1. A barangay of the city of Lucena, Quezon, Philippines.

Also used as

cotta is also the alternative form of katha.

Examples of cotta in a sentence

  • Muted terra cotta hues in floor tiles anchor the collection of earth tones.
  • Among her busts in terra cotta are those of John Brown, Charles Sumner, Lincoln, and Longfellow.
  • At the third-floor level runs a band of varying ornament, including projecting panels of glazed terra cotta surrounding roughened, sandpaperlike rectangles.

All 10 example sentences with cotta

Forms of cotta

pluralcottas

Plural of cotta: cottas

Origin of cotta

From Medieval Latin cotta (“clerical tunic”).

Questions about cotta

What does cotta mean?
Cotta means a surplice, in England and America usually one shorter and less full than the ordinary surplice and with short sleeves, or sometimes none.
What part of speech is cotta?
Cotta can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of cotta?
The plural of cotta is cottas.

Words near cotta in the dictionary

  1. Cotswold lions
  2. Cotswold morris dancing
  3. Cotswold stone
  4. Cotswolds
  5. cott
  6. cotta
  7. cottabus
  8. cottage
  9. cottage bacon
  10. cottage cheese
  11. cottage cheese arse

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cotta (page history and authors); Cotta (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “cotta.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cotta. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.