Etymology

dace

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Today it means: A shoal-forming fish of species Leuciscus leuciscus, common to swift rivers in England and Wales and in Europe. Full definition →

Middle English darse ← Old French darz
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The story

  1. Old French · derived fromdarz
  2. Middle English · inherited fromdarse
  3. English todaydace

Old variant of earlier darse, from Late Middle English darse (also as dace already), from Old French darz, oblique plural form of dart (“spear; javelin”). For a similar loss of r, compare bass, while for the pronunciation with /eɪ/, see scarce.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.