Other forms: cords
A cord is thin rope, or a length of it. A length of cord, cut the cord, electrical cord.
It is thicker than string and thinner than rope, and the boundaries are loose. Cutting the cord means becoming independent, from the umbilical one. A cord is also a measure of firewood — a stack four by four by eight feet. Note the spelling against chord, which is the musical one and has the h.
1nouncordThin rope, or a length of it.
“He tied the parcel with a length of strong cord.”
2nounmeasureA measure of stacked firewood.
“We ordered a cord of firewood to last us through the winter.”
cord is a thin rope.
Old French corde comes from Latin chorda, from Greek chorde, a gut string. Chord and cordon come from the same string.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵʰerH- — bowels, intestines
Ancient Greek
χορδή — string of gut, the string of a lyre
Latin
chorda
Old French
corde
Middle English
corde
English, today
cord
Built from
From Middle English corde, from Old French corde, from Latin chorda, from Ancient Greek χορδή (“string of gut, the string of a lyre”), from Proto-Indo-European ǵʰerH- (“bowels, intestines”). Displaced native Old English sīma (“cord, rope”), sāl (“rope, cord, rein”), and sāda (“cord, halter, snare”). a doublet of chord and cuerda. More at yarn and hernia.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA