Combe, Couch, Course, Crater: Origins, Forms, Histories of Words Meaning Valley, Cave

The natural features of a region are called its topography. The word comes from Greek topos ("place").

English speakers have a long history of inventing (or borrowing from other languages) all sorts of different names for related topographical features.

Valleys and caves, for example, as well as human-made features having similar topographical effects, are known by a wide range of words in English, each with its own unique story to tell.

In the alphabetically arranged presentation of such terms in the current series, the next words are these: combe, couch, course, and crater. Here is an overview of their origins, forms, and histories. The dates of first appearance of the forms and meanings are from the Oxford English Dictionary.

Combe
Combe entered English during the Old English period (before 12th century) as cumb. It is of Celtic origin and is akin to Welsh cwm ("valley"). The English word has had many different spellings, the most common variants today being coombe and coomb.

Combe is used in Great Britain to denote various kinds of valleys: (1) a deep, narrow valley (before 12th century); (2) especially in southern England, a valley on the flank of a hill, or a steep, short valley running up from the seacoast (17th century).

Couch
Modern English couch (17th century) comes from Middle English couche ("bed," 14th century), from Middle French couche, from coucher ("to lie down"), from Latin collocare ("to set in place"), a combination of com- ("with") and locare ("to place"), from locus ("place").

The original meaning of couch is an article of furniture for reclining (14th century).

The lair or den of an animal, especially the burrow of an otter, is a couch (1398).

Course
Modern English course comes from Middle English course (14th century) and cours (13th century), from Old French cours, from Latin cursus, from currere ("to run").

The original meanings of course are the action of running and the path of running (both 13th century).

A natural or artificial channel through which water flows is a course (1665).

Crater
English crater comes from Latin crater ("mixing bowl, crater"), from Greek krater, from kerannynai ("to mix"). The word is akin to Sanskrit srinati ("he mixes").

The bowl-shaped depression around the mouth of a volcano is a crater (1613).

A depression formed by the explosion of a bomb or a shell, or by the impact of a meteorite, is also a crater (1839).
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Encyclopaedia Britannica Ready Reference 2004. CD-ROM. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2004.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2006.

Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary. 3rd ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2007.

The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1989.