kūts

Etymology
There are diverging theories on the origin of this word. The most likely derives it from the past particle of an old unattested verb, whence also (q.v.); the original meaning would be “hit (one)”, “driven, stuck (into the ground)”, referring to the fact that primitive animal barns or sheds were little more than fenced enclosures made with poles or sticks driven into the ground (the farm buildings which inherited the name appeared only in the 9th-10th century). The original participle, probably an a-stem, became an i-stem ( > ), possibly under the influence of other i-stem farm building names like ,. Another hypothesis is that the long ū might come from an earlier un, in which case would be related to 🇨🇬 (🇨🇬, 🇨🇬, ). The Lithuanian cognates, however, have ū instead of the expected un, which weakens this hypothesis.

Noun

 * 1) (animal) barn, shed, pen, sty building in a farm for keeping animals