pellet

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English pelote, also pelet,^[2][1][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman pelote and Middle French pelote (“ball”),^[5][3] in Old French pelote from the 11th or early 12th century,^[6][5][7][2] which came from Vulgar Latin *pilotta, a diminutive of pila (“ball”).^{[7][2][4][1][8]} The OED analyses the French word as pila with the suffix -ot, and compares Medieval Latin pelota, pilota, a crossbow missile or cannonball in British records from 1221.^[5] Etymonline also has the English word partly directly from Medieval Latin.^[6] The Latin noun may be related to pilus (“hair”), since the balls used in Roman games were stuffed with hair.^[7][6][1] The French word is the source of pelota through Spanish, and a diminutive of it gave platoon;^[8][9] the Latin noun also gave pill.^[8][9][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A ball of stone or metal shot as a missile from a crossbow, mortar or cannon: 1372–74.^[5][4] Barnhart finds it earlier as the surname Pilet (1235),^[4] and the OED notes surnames from the early 13th century that may reflect either the Anglo-Norman or the English word.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Weekley notes that the missile was at first large, such as a stone thrown by a siege engine, and later shrank, as with bullet;^[10] by the 16th century it was also a toy bullet of clay or paper (1553), and later small shot.^[5][11] The general sense, a small rounded mass of a substance such as medicine or food, appears in 1381 in a cookery book.^[5][6] Later specialised senses are the ball of bones and feathers coughed up by a bird of prey (1802), a small animal's dropping (1884) and the solid mass collected in a centrifuge (1937).^[5] In heraldry a pellet was a roundel, later a black one representing a cannonball (about 1425).^[5] The verb, to form into pellets, is from Shakespeare's A Lover's Complaint (1609, though Barnhart and Etymonline date it to the 1590s),^[5][3][4][6] and to hit with pellets from 1709.^[5][3] Johnson (1755) gave "a little ball" and "a bullet".^[12]

Timeline

• 1372–74 – a stone or metal ball shot as a missile.^[5][4]
• 1381 – a small rounded mass, as of food or medicine.^[5]
• c. 1425 – a roundel in heraldry.^[5]
• 1553 – a toy bullet.^[5]
• 1609 – verb, to form into pellets.^[5][3] Barnhart dates it to 1597.^[4]
• 1709 – verb, to hit with pellets.^[5]
• 1802 – the cast regurgitated by a bird of prey.^[5]
• 1884 – a rounded dropping of a small animal.^[5]
• 1937 – the material collected at the bottom of a centrifuge tube.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small, usually round mass of a substance, often compressed: a pellet of wax.^[11][3][5]
2. A small piece of compressed feed for livestock, poultry or pets.^[3]
3. A piece of small shot, or an imitation bullet for an air gun or toy gun.^[11][5]
4. A mass of undigested bones, fur and feathers regurgitated by a bird of prey; a cast.^[11][5]
5. (historical) A stone ball shot from a catapult or cannon.^[11][5]
6. (heraldry) A roundel, now a black one representing a cannonball.^[5]

Verb

1. To form something into pellets.^[3][5]
2. To hit with pellets: The children pelleted the fence with acorns.^[3][5]

Word family

• pelletal
• pelletlike
• pellet gun

Related words

• pill
• pelota
• platoon
• pelt

Usage notes

A rare noun pellet, an animal skin or sheepskin, chiefly Scottish, has a separate source: it is from Anglo-Norman pelette, a diminutive of the word that gave pell.^[5][13][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ 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 z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ 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)