Irish. Also 6 cote, 6–7 cott. [Irish and Gaelic cot a small boat (O’Reilly, Macleod and Dewar): cf. also Irish coit coracle, small boat (O’Reilly).]
A small roughly made boat, used on the rivers and lakes of Ireland; a ‘dug-out.’
1537. Stat. Ireland (1765), I. 161. Boates, scowts, wherries, clarans, cottes, and other vessels.
1586. J. Hooker, Girald. Irel., II. 161/2. They tooke a bote or a cote trough, which could not hold aboue eight or ten persons at a time.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., II. vi. 9. Questioned Both what she was, and what that vsage ment, Which in her cott she daily practized.
1611. Markham, Countr. Content., I. x. (1668), 59. A little Boat or Cot, if you Angle in great Waters, to carry you up and down to the most convenientest places for your pastime.
a. 1650. G. Boate, Nat. Hist. Ireland, 64 (T.). They call, in Ireland, cots, things like boats, but very unshapely, being nothing but square pieces of timber made hollow.
1807. Sir R. Colt Hoare, Tour in Ireland, 106. Numerous cots employed in catching salmon.
1862. Lever, Barrington, vii. One of those light canoe-shaped skiffs—cots as they are called on these rivers.
