the meaning of de cola

Question

Hola amiga,

I try, by this question, to understand the meaning of "de cola". The first time I met this expression was at lesson 4.12, el piano de cola which was translated to the grand piano. According to the dictionary cola means tail or bottom. I wonder if cola could mean grand or big? I would like to know whether it is specific to the piano, or could we use is with other names to describe them as big or grand? Are such phrases like la casa de cola or el cuerpo de cola could mean the big house, the big body relatively?

Gracias y saludos

Answer 1

Essentially cola is "tail". It's fairly flexible. In some cases it can be the bottom or the end of ("the tail end") or at the edge of something.

You hear cola used a lot to mean "queue" in Spain at least. Territurtle has the right idea about piano de cola. It's got a "tail-end"

So to hacer cola is to queue or as the Americans say "stand in line" the idea here of "making a tail" if that makes sense.

Hey, I like that way of putting it -- "tail-end." ¡Bien hecho, Birdland! - territurtle, Jan 4, 2012

:-) The guys who manned the rear guns in bombers during the 2nd world war used to be called "tail-end charlies". It's an old phrase though, much older than that reference.:-) - lagartijaverde, Jan 4, 2012

Correct. So since a grand piano has a tail kind of thing as opposed to (as Terri pointed out) an upright piano, it is called "piano de cola". Tail Piano, if you were to translate literally. - Gekkosan, Jan 4, 2012

Answer 2

No, sorry -- neither la casa de cola nor el cuerpo de cola work.

I believe the "cola" in piano de cola comes from thinking of a grand piano as being an upright (or vertical) piano which has an "extension" placed on the bottom back end (or towards the rear).

I'm basing this on

No. 7 in theDRAE stating:

Punta o extremidad posterior de alguna cosa, por oposición a cabeza o principio.

But since I am not a native speaker, best to wait for other, possible better responses.