cotter

name

1. A surname.
2. A minor city in Baxter County, Arkansas, United States.
3. A minor city in Louisa County, Iowa, United States.

noun

Etymology: From Middle English cotter, cotere, kottere, koter, cotier, equivalent to cot (“cottage”) + -er, from Old English cot. Compare Old French coter, cotier.

1. A peasant who performed labour in exchange for the right to live in a cottage.

   “The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,— / This night his weekly moil is at an end,— / Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, […]”

verb

Etymology: Unknown.

1. To fasten with a cotter.

   “She found Esco by the barn. He was trying to cotter a cart-wheel with a peg he had whittled from a locust branch, driving it in with a hand sledge”