![\"Cotte](\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/blog\/maille.gif\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I learned an interesting French word last night: maille<\/strong> [maj], which means stitch or mesh and appears in such expressions as:<\/p>\n – maille \u00e0 l’endroit = plain stitch Maille<\/strong> comes from the Old French maille<\/em> (loop, stitch, mesh, link), from Vulgar Latin *macla<\/em>, from Latin macula<\/em> (spot, speck, stain; mesh; cell) from From Proto-Italic *smatlo-<\/em>, from Proto-Indo-European *smh\u2082tlo- (possibly meaning \u201cwiping\u201d).<\/p>\n The English word mail<\/strong>, as in chainmail, comes from the same root via the Middle English maille<\/em> \u200e(mail armour) the Old French maille<\/em>.<\/p>\n The English word mail<\/strong>, as in letters and parcels, originally meant a bag or wallet, and came to mean a bag containing letters to be delivered by post, and then the letters themselves. It comes from the Middle English male<\/em>, from the Anglo-Norman male<\/em>, Old French male \u200e(bag, wallet), from the Frankish *malha<\/em> \u200e(bag), from the Proto-Germanic *malh\u014d<\/em> \u200e(bag, pouch), from the Proto-Indo-European *molko-<\/em> \u200e(leather pouch).<\/p>\n *molko-<\/em> is also the root of the French words malle<\/em> (large suitcase, trunk) and mallette<\/em> (briefcase); and the Spanish mala<\/em> \u200e(suitcase, mailbag, mail, post), and maleta<\/em> (suitcase).<\/p>\n Mail (letters) in French is (le) courrier<\/em> and the postal service is la poste<\/em>. Email is officially courriel<\/em> or courrier \u00e9lectronique<\/em>, though many people use e-mail. Courrier<\/em> is borrowed from the Italian corriere<\/em> (messenger, courier), from correre<\/em> (to run, hurry, rush), from the Latin currere<\/em>, from curr\u014d<\/em> (to run, hurry), from Proto-Italic *korz\u014d<\/em> (to run), from Proto-Indo-European *\u1e31ers-<\/em> \u200e(to run), also the root of the English words courier and current.<\/p>\n Sources: Reverso<\/a>, Wiktionary<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I learned an interesting French word last night: maille [maj], which means stitch or mesh and appears in such expressions as: – maille \u00e0 l’endroit = plain stitch – maille \u00e0 l’envers \/ tomb\u00e9e \/ coul\u00e9e = purl stitch – maille Jersey = stocking stitch – doublure maille = mesh lining – maille du tricot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,107,111,128,10,15,45,64,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-etymology","category-french","category-italian","category-language","category-latin","category-proto-indo-european","category-spanish","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n– maille \u00e0 l’envers \/ tomb\u00e9e \/ coul\u00e9e = purl stitch
\n– maille Jersey = stocking stitch
\n– doublure maille = mesh lining
\n– maille du tricot = knitting stitch
\n– maille du crochet = crochet stitch
\n– \u00e0 maille serr\u00e9e = close-woven
\n– avoir maille \u00e0 partir = to be in trouble
\n– avoir maille \u00e0 partir avec qn = to have a brush with sb
\n– \u00e0 mailles fines = with a fine mesh
\n– passer \u00e0 travers les mailles du filet = to slip through the net
\n– cotte de maille(s) = coat of mail; chainmail<\/p>\n