The story
- Medieval Latin · derived fromdorsālis“of or relating to the back”
- Middle English · inherited fromdorsal/dorsale
- English todaydorsal
From Late Middle English dorsal/dorsale, borrowing from Medieval Latin dorsālis (“of or relating to the back”), from dorsum (“the back”) + -ālis (“-al”, adjectival suffix); equivalent to dorsum + -al.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.