The story
- Medieval Latin · derived frommasca“specter, nightmare”
- Old Occitan · derived frommasca
- Occitan · derived frommascòta“sortilege”
- French · borrowed frommascotte
- English todaymascot
Borrowed from French mascotte, from Occitan mascòta (“sortilege”), feminine diminutive of masca (“witch”), from Old Occitan masca, from Medieval Latin masca (“specter, nightmare”). More at mask.
Words from the same roots
Medieval Latinmasca all →
maskmasquerade
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.