coterminous

English

WOTD – 26 March 2009

Alternative forms

• conterminous

Etymology

From Latin conterminus, from con- (“with”) + terminus (“border, end”). The spelling with co- instead of con- is probably influenced by the related prefix co-.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kəˈtəː.mɪ.nəs/
• (US) IPA^(key): /kəˈtɝ.mɪ.nəs/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: co‧ter‧mi‧nous

Adjective

coterminous (not comparable)

1. Meeting end to end or at the ends.
2. (geography) Having matching boundaries; or, adjoining and sharing a boundary.

   New York's borough of Brooklyn and Kings County are coterminous.

   To get a building warrant he had to show the plans to "coterminous proprietors", neighbours with whom his property shared a boundary.

   • 1862, Anthony Trollope, North America. […], volume II, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC:

     It has been the close vicinity of slave-owners to each other, the fact that their lands have been coterminous, that theirs was especially a cotton district, which has tempted them to secession.

   • 1915, William Bennett Munro et al., The Seigneurs of Old Canada (Chronicles of Canada)‎^[1], volume 5:

     These eighty-two parishes were roughly coterminous with the existing seigneuries, but not always so.

3. (by extension) Having the same scope, range of meaning, or extent in time.
   • 1919, Robert Lynd, Old and New Masters‎^[2]:

     But it is purely fantastic unless we bear in mind that the governing class has been continually compelled to enlarge itself, and that its tendency is reluctantly to go on doing so until in the end it will be coterminous with the "governed class."

   • 1921, Edward Sapir, Language: An introduction to the study of speech‎^[3]:

     From this it follows at once that language and thought are not strictly coterminous.

   • 2022, China Miéville, chapter 4, in A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto, →OCLC:

     The elision of moral and moralising arguments is common, but the two aren't coterminous.

4. (law) Said of linked or related property leases that expire together.

Translations

meeting end-to-end

• Polish: ościenny (pl)

adjoining

• Bulgarian: съседен (bg) (sǎseden)
• Czech: sousední (cs)
• French: limitrophe (fr)
• Icelandic: með sameiginleg landamæri; sem liggur innan einna og sömu landamæra; samlægur
• Russian: смежные (ru) (smežnyje)

having the same scope, range, or extent

• Icelandic: með sameiginleg landamæri; sem liggur innan einna og sömu landamæra; samlægur

of leases: linked or related

• Icelandic: samlægur

See also

• coextensive
• contiguous