The story
- Latin · derived fromvarius“variegated”
- Old French · derived fromvair
- Middle English · inherited fromveir
- English todayvair
From Middle English veir, veire, from Old French vair, veir, from the accusative singular masculine form of Latin varius (“variegated”). Not related to Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“squirrel”).
Words from the same roots
Latinvarius all →
variousvariolavari-variegatevariolitevariometer
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.