American Heritage Dictionary Entry: cohort HOW TO USE THE DICTIONARY To look up an entry in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, use the search window above. For best results, after typing in the word, click on the “Search” button instead of using the “enter” key. Some compound words (like bus rapid transit, dog whistle, or identity theft) don’t appear on the drop-down list when you type them in the search bar. For best results with compound words, place a quotation mark before the compound word in the search window. guide to the dictionary THE USAGE PANEL The Usage Panel is a group of nearly 200 prominent scholars, creative writers, journalists, diplomats, and others in occupations requiring mastery of language. Annual surveys have gauged the acceptability of particular usages and grammatical constructions. The Panelists NEED HELP SOLVING A CROSSWORD PUZZLE? Go to our Crossword Puzzle Solver and type in the letters that you know, and the Solver will produce a list of possible solutions. -- AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY APP The new American Heritage Dictionary app is now available for iOS and Android. THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY BLOG The articles in our blog examine new words, revised definitions, interesting images from the fifth edition, discussions of usage, and more. OPEN DICTIONARY PROJECT Share your ideas for new words and new meanings of old words! Start Sharing Now! -- See word lists from the best-selling 100 Words Series! Find out more! INTERESTED IN DICTIONARIES? Check out the Dictionary Society of North America at http://www.dictionarysociety.com co·hort (kōhôrt′) Share: Tweet n. 1. a. A group or band of people. b. A companion or associate. c. A generational group as defined in demographics, statistics, or market research: “The cohort of people aged 30 to 39 ... were more conservative” (American Demographics). 2. a. One of the 10 divisions of a Roman legion, consisting of 300 to 600 men. b. A group of soldiers. [Middle English, from Old French cohorte, from Latin cohors, cohort-; see gher-1 in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] Usage Note: The English word cohort comes from the Latin word cohors, which meant “an enclosed area” or “a pen or courtyard enclosing a group of cattle or poultry.” By extension, the word could refer to any group in general and in particular to a company of soldiers or a troop of cavalry in the army of ancient Rome. The group of men forming the bodyguard of a Roman general or the retinue of a provincial governor was also called a cohors. Because of this history, some people insist that the English word cohort should be used to refer only to a group of people and never to an individual person. But the use of cohort in reference to individuals is common, especially in the plural, and enjoys some acceptance; in our 2017 ballot, 52 percent of the Usage Panel accepted the sentence The cashiered dictator and his cohorts have all written their memoirs. The traditional usage referring to a group enjoys stronger approval: 69 percent accepted The gangster walked into the room surrounded by his cohort, and 84 percent accepted the sentence Like many in her cohort, she was never interested in kids when she was young, which uses the word in a more specialized sociological or demographic context. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved. Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices: Indo-European Roots Semitic Roots The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. 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