Etymology

capelin

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Today it means: A fish of species Mallotus villosus, a type of smelt found in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. Full definition →

Middle French capelan ← Old Occitan capelan ← Late Latin cappellānus
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The story

  1. Late Latin · derived fromcappellānus“chaplain”
  2. Old Occitan · derived fromcapelan
  3. Middle French · borrowed fromcapelan
  4. English todaycapelin

Borrowed from Middle French capelan, from Provençal and Old Occitan capelan, from Late Latin cappellānus (“chaplain”). Doublet of chaplain.

Words from the same roots

Late Latincappellānus all →

chaplain

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.