Where does “lentil” come from?
Lentil comes from Middle English lentile, from Old French lentille, from Latin lenticula, a diminutive of Latin lens, meaning a small lens-shaped seed.
lentil (English): Any of several plants of the genus "Lens",...
Definitions
- Any of several plants of the genus "Lens",...
Ancestry of “lentil”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middle English | lentile | The seed of the lentil used as food |
| 2 | Old French | lentille | lentil |
| 3 | Vulgar Latin | lenticla | — |
| 4 | Latin | lenticula | lentil |
| 5 | Latin | -ella | inflection of -ellus: ## nominative/vocative... |
| 6 | Latin | -ellus | Alternative form of -ulus; "forming masculine... |
| 7 | Latin | -ulus | Used to form a diminutive of a noun, indicating... |
| 8 | Proto-Italic | -olos | — |
| 9 | Proto-Italic | -elos | Forms desubstantival and deadjectival diminutive nouns |
| 10 | Proto-Indo-European | -e-lós | — |
| 11 | Proto-Indo-European | -lós | Forms agent nouns from verbal roots |