The story
- Latin · derived fromgens“[Roman] clan”
- Latin · derived fromtertius“third”
- English todaytercel gentle
Ultimately from Latin tertius (“third”) (for complete etymology, see tercel) + gentle (in the archaic sense of "well-born, noble"), ultimately from Latin gens (“[Roman] clan”) (for complete etymology, see gentle)
Words from the same roots
Latintertius all →
tercinetert-terti-tertialterzettotiercel
Latingens all →
gauntgensgeno-genticide
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.