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Etymology and origin of the English word caul

Pronunciation

caul1 membrane; netted cap

Confidence
Disputed
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1300 before 1300, gloss on Neckam
Borrowed from
French cale via Middle English

Etymology

The word for the cap and the membrane is inherited from Middle English calle, also kalle and kelle,[2] of disputed origin.[2][3] Most dictionaries take it as borrowed from French cale (“small cap, head-covering”),[4][5][6][7][8][9][10] which Etymonline, Merriam-Webster, Klein and Weekley regard, some with a "perhaps", as a back-formation from calotte (“skullcap”).[5][6][8][9] Hoad, the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English point out the difficulty that the English word is recorded before the French one.[3][11][12] The MED and the American Heritage Dictionary instead derive it from Old English cawl (“basket, container, net, sieve”),[2][13] a word Old English glosses use for a basket,[14] and the MED regards the French cale of the 15th century as either a back-formation from calotte or a borrowing from English.[2] The sources disagree further back as well: Etymonline traces calotte through Italian callotta to Latin calautica (“a woman's headdress with hanging flaps”), a foreign word of unknown origin;[5] Partridge traces it through Old Occitan calota to a Greek word for a covering, and reports Bloch and Wartburg's opposite view that calotte comes from cale, from écale (“shell, husk”), from Frankish *skala.[15] Johnson (1755) called it "of uncertain etymology".[16]

Earliest recorded meaning

A woman's hair net or headdress: the word glosses Latin for a hair net in a copy of Neckam's glossary dated to before 1300,[2] and the OED's first quotation, from before 1327, is in a political song.[4] Collins and Hoad date it to the 13th century,[17][3] Etymonline to the early 14th.[5]

Semantic evolution

The word began with the net that holds the hair and spread to other things that enclose as a net does.[4][11] Chaucer uses calle three times for a hairnet or decorative headdress, and the Wife of Bath names it with the coverchief.[18][2] The "cap" sense remained the main one until the 17th century,[5] and was later narrowed to the netted base of a wig (1693–1786) and to the back part of a woman's cap (from 1756).[4] The move from net to body began in the late 14th century, for the fatty membrane around the intestines (1382, in the Wycliffite Bible) and for any enclosing membrane (1398, in Trevisa).[4][5] From 1547 it was also the amnion, especially the part sometimes found on a newborn's head.[4][5] Such a birth was thought to bring prosperity and eloquence and to protect against drowning, so that 18th-century seamen paid dearly for a caul, and cauls were advertised for sale in British newspapers through the First World War.[5] Weekley compares Icelandic sigurcufi, literally "victory cowl", and French né coiffé (“born capped”) for a lucky person.[9] Johnson (1755) still gives the hair net first, then any small net, then the omentum.[16] In the dialects of Cheshire, north Lincolnshire, Gloucestershire and west Somerset it was the thin fatty membrane over the intestines of animals eaten as meat.[19]

Timeline

  • before 1300 – kalle, a net for the hair.[2]
  • before 1327 – a close-fitting cap or netted headdress worn by women.[4]
  • 1382 – the fatty membrane around the intestines, the omentum.[4]
  • 1398 – any enclosing membrane, such as those of the brain (obsolete by 1684).[4]
  • 1481–90 – a net for wrapping something in, any ornamental network (now obsolete).[4]
  • 1547 – the amnion, especially the part covering a child's head at birth.[4]
  • 1548 – a spider's web (obsolete by 1631).[4]
  • 1693 – the netted base of a wig (obsolete by 1786).[4]
  • 1756 – the part of a woman's cap or soft bonnet covering the back of the head.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A part of the amniotic sac sometimes covering a baby's head at birth; also the amnion itself.[17][6][7]
  2. The greater omentum, the large fold of peritoneum hanging from the stomach over the intestines.[17][6][7]
  3. The netted lining at the back of a woman's cap or hat.[6][7][4]
  4. (archaic) A woman's close-fitting cap or headdress of net.[6][7][4]
  5. (obsolete) A net for wrapping something in.[6][4][11]
  6. (obsolete, 1693–1786) The netted base of a wig.[6][4][11]
  7. (obsolete, 1548–1631) A spider's web.[4][11]

caul2 plate used in making plywood

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1851 C. Cist, Sketches and Statistics of Cincinnati
Borrowed from
French cale

Etymology

The plate is probably borrowed from French cale (“chock, shim, thin piece of wood put under an object to level it”),[6][7][4] a word the OED calls of uncertain origin, comparing Latin cāla (“piece of wood, billet”).[4] Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com derive the French word from German Keil (“wedge”),[6][7] and Merriam-Webster takes that back to Old High German kīl, related to Old English cīnan (“to gape, crack”).[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OED's first quotation is from 1851, in C. Cist's Sketches and Statistics of Cincinnati.[4]

Timeline

  • 1851 – the plate used in woodworking.[4][6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A form or plate, usually a heated sheet of metal, that evens out the pressure when plywood is made or veneer is shaped to a surface.[6][7]
  • calotte
  • kell

Usage notes

The OED also records caul for a cabbage (Old English to 1727) and for a stalk (about 1420), borrowed from Latin caulis, the same word as kale and cole;[4] and caul for a sheepfold (1483–1691), borrowed from Latin caulae.[4] In Scots a caul, also cauld, is a weir or dam that diverts river water, recorded from the mid 16th century, of unknown origin.[11] In Wexford dialect caul was a horse, which Wright relates to Middle English cabylle.[19]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  11. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  14. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  15. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  16. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  17. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  18. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  19. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Caul.” Etymologically, 5 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/caul. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

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