Cohose

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. A silver-skinned Pacific salmon, also called the coho, prized by anglers and commercial fishers alike
2. An alternative spelling for the coho, a species of Pacific salmon with a silvery body and reddish fins
3. The name for a North Pacific salmon, the coho, that spawns in freshwater rivers and streams

Etymology: Before the word settled into modern "hose," English had a few variant spellings for the leg coverings it named. "Cohose" appears to be one of them, used in the sense of a close-fitting covering for the legs, which is the sense "hose" kept for centuries. Its exact dating and attestations are uncertain, so I would not pin it to a particular century. The older root is Germanic. Old English "hosa" meant a leg covering, and the same root gave German "Hose," which still means trousers. The prefix in "cohose" is probably the Middle English form of "co-," meaning together, so the word may have described a pair of leg coverings as one garment, but that is a plausible reading rather than a documented one. Its exact formation is uncertain, so treat that explanation as tentative.