Etymology

gringolée

Today it means: Of e.g. the ends of a cross: terminating in snakes' heads. Full definition →

French gringolé ← Middle Dutch crinkelen ← Old Dutch *kring
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The story

  1. Proto-Germanic · derived from*kringaz
  2. Old Dutch · derived from*kring
  3. Middle Dutch · derived fromcrinkelen
  4. French · borrowed fromgringolé
  5. English todaygringolée

From French gringolé (attested since 1644), related to the verb gringoler (and apparently dégringoler, attested in the form desgringueler from 1595), apparently from Middle Dutch crinkelen, from kring (“circle”), from Old Dutch *kring, from Proto-Germanic *kringaz; the semantics are obscure.

Words from the same roots

Proto-Germanic*kringaz all →

krantz

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.