Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Cockle
/ˈkɒkəl/noun
A small edible bivalve with a ribbed heart-shaped shell.
The Greek roots
κογχύλιον
konchýlion
little shell
Literally: “small shellfish”
Follow a root:κογχύλιον1 word
The story of the word
The Greek diminutive of konchē went into Latin as conchylium and came out of Old French as coquille, with the vowels knocked about along the way. So cockle and conch are the same shell wearing different clothes: one arrived through the kitchen, one through the library. The cockles of your heart are a separate puzzle, probably named for the shape rather than the animal.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
Same family
conchconchology
In a sentence
We dug cockles out of the wet sand with our fingers.