Etymology

chaplain

C3H4A1P3L1A1I1N1

Today it means: A member of a religious body (who is often, although not always, of the clergy) officially assigned to provide pastoral care at an institution, group, private chapel, etc. Full definition →

Middle English chapeleyn ← Old French chapelain ← Late Latin cappellānus
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

chaplain · noun1

  1. Late Latin · derived fromcappellānus
  2. Old French · derived fromchapelain
  3. Middle English · inherited fromchapeleyn
  4. English todaychaplain

From Middle English chapeleyn, from Old French chapelain, from Medieval Latin, Late Latin cappellānus, from cappella. Doublet of capelin. Displaced Old English handprēost.

Chaplain · proper noun2

Variant of Chaplin.

Words from the same roots

Old Frenchchapelain all →

chaplin

Late Latincappellānus all →

capelin

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.