cooter

n. Lower Southern U.S.

1. An edible freshwater turtle of the genus Chrysemys.
2. Any of various turtles or tortoises. See Regional Note at goober.

[Gullah, of Niger-Congo origin, akin to Mandingo kuta.]

from Malinke
This word originated in Mali

"If you've got facilities to house a big aquatic turtle, cooters can't be beat," writes Mary on the Internet Turtle & Tortoise Forum. "They're pretty and friendly and can become quite the puppy dog characters, following people around the pond area."

If you don't know a cooter from a turtle, that's because a cooter is a turtle. But it's a turtle of a particular kind, or rather of several particular kinds. Mary was writing about "Pseudemys floridana floridana--one big turtle. Florida cooter females can reach 16 inches." In the Pseudemys genus of redbelly turtles and cooters, there are also, among others P. suwanniensis, the Suwannee River Cooter; P. concinna metteri, the Missouri River Cooter; P. texana, the Texas River Cooter; P. gorzugi, the Western River Cooter; P. concinna, the Eastern River Cooter; and P. concinna hieroglyphica, the Hieroglyphic River Cooter. (There is no Hieroglyphic River; the turtle is called Hieroglyphic because of the markings on its shell.)

In the United States, cooters and their names are found mostly in the southern and eastern states. Cooters seem especially well known in South Carolina, and it is from that state in 1832 that we have the earliest evidence of cooter used in English. In recent times, cooter has also been used as the name of a dance, the Cooter Stomp, a country solo that begins "touch, hold, touch, hold, touch, touch, stomp, stomp" at the Club Danse Québec. And cooter has a vulgar slang use as a name for a central part of the female anatomy. That may relate to the obsolete verb coot, dating back to 1667 and referring to the long slow mating practice of turtles.

It is very likely that cooter is from an African language, brought over by slaves. And it could well have come from more than one language at the same time, since several languages have similar words for turtle. Among the likely candidates are Malinke and Bambara. Both are Mandingo languages of the Mande branch of the Niger-Congo language family, and in both, kuta means turtle. Since the next word is Bambara, we will let this one be Malinke, which is spoken by three-quarters of a million of the ten million people of Mali, and by an additional quarter of a million in Senegal. Another English word definitely from Malinke is boubou (1961), a large flowing dress worn by both women and men.

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Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: large river turtle of the southern United States and northern Mexico
  Synonyms: river cooter, Pseudemys concinna

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• Formed: 1996, Orange County, NY
• Genres: Rock

Biography

Based in the suburbs of New York, melodic pop-punkers Chris Hughes (guitar), Phil Robinson (drums), Chris Johnson (guitar/vocals), and Rob Kucharek (bass) were known as Cooter from 1996 until the summer of 2002, when the bandmembers rechristened themselves Autopilot Off. The Florida-based Fueled by Ramen Records released the band's 1999 self-titled debut EP, and the following year Cooter's first album, Looking Up, came out with the help of Fastmusic Records. ~ Mike DaRonco, All Music Guide

Looking Up Buy this CD

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