Etymology

fleur-de-lis

Today it means: A design representing a flower whose three petals are joined together at the bottom (⚜, ⚜️), often used in heraldry, where it is particularly associated with the French monarchy. Full definition →

Middle English flourdelis ← Anglo-Norman flour de lis ← French fleur de lis
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The story

  1. French · borrowed fromfleur de lis“lily flower”
  2. Anglo-Norman · derived fromflour de lis“lily flower”
  3. Middle English · inherited fromflourdelis
  4. English todayfleur-de-lis

From earlier flower-de-luce, from Middle English flourdelis, from Anglo-Norman flour de lis (“lily flower”); later remodelled after modern French fleur de lis (“lily flower”).

Words from the same roots

Frenchfleur de lis all →

Fleur de Lys

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.