Cwtch

(that's pronounced basically like "Kutch," I think)
-Cwtch comes from Welsh, and literally means something like "a safe place." 

Cwtch can refer to a cupboard of sorts or a storage place (like a "coal cwtch" in the basement), or maybe something more like a "cubby" in America.  More interestingly, though, it also refers to a more metaphorical, personal safe place.  It is often used to refer to intimate gestures, from the way a mother wraps up a baby in a shawl or holds her children to a hug between old friends to a cuddle between lovers.  It also can be used to mean to keep something private or secret.  Sometimes it is used more broadly to refer to the feeling of safety and privacy that being comfortable with loved ones brings.  Mostly, I think it's used as we use the word "hug," but it seems to imply much more.  I like how much can be carried in this word, how the idea of safety and comfort can mean so much, and can be imparted in simple gestures.  American English doesn't have a word that I think even begins to carry all of this meaning in it, so I think that we should bring it in, even if only for the awesome spelling.

[note: a Welsh friend of mine pointed out that Cwtch was added to the Oxford Concise Dictionary in August of 2005]

Comments

[Peter Williams]

Can someone please explain further this etymology. To my understanding there is no "ch" with this sound in Welsh as "ch" is always as in the Scottish "loch". "si" would be the the nearest in words like "siop", but I don't know any "ch" sound in Welsh. So where does this word come from?? (I did my O Level in Welsh in 1965 in Caerphilly, but that was as far as I got so I'm no authority, just curious)

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