Etymology

carpel

C3A1R1P3E1L1

Today it means: A constituent part of a flower pistil: the female reproductive organs in a flower. A carpel is composed of an ovary, a style, and a stigma, although some flowers have carpels without a distinct style. In origin, carpels are leaves (megasporophylls) that have evolved to enclose the ovules. A pistil may be composed of a single carpel or of several carpels fused together. Full definition →

French carpelle ← New Latin carpellum ← Ancient Greek κᾰρπός
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*kerp-“to pluck, harvest”
  2. Ancient Greek · derived fromκᾰρπός“fruit”
  3. New Latin · derived fromcarpellum
  4. French · borrowed fromcarpelle
  5. English todaycarpel

1835, borrowed from French carpelle, from New Latin carpellum, a diminutive of Ancient Greek κᾰρπός (kărpós, “fruit”), from Proto-Indo-European *kerp- (“to pluck, harvest”).

Words from the same roots

New Latincarpellum all →

carpellum

Proto-Indo-European*kerp- all →

harvestcarpregmacarp

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.