mascle

Definite, a complex group of words, overlapping considerably with mail (q.v.) and mask (q.v.). Classical Latin macula generally meant 'spot, mark, stain, blemish' (it is generally interpreted as standing for an earlier diminutive mal(o)cula; cf. Sanskrit मल mala 'dirt'). In the Classical period it also had the transferred meaning of 'hole in a net, space in a mesh' (e.g. of a spider's web, in Pliny's Natural History). Most medieval senses of Latin macula are continuations from, or extensions of these. Old Irish is the first Insular vernacular in which a borrowing of the Latin word is attested, first in the 'mesh' sense, as present citations; more common in Irish was the meaning 'globule, round mass, bunch', used of various things (e.g. fruits) but also of bunches of material (such as gold ornaments for hair; see present citation under sense 3 for a possible instance). Latin macula became maille in the various Old French languages, including Anglo-French; see mail for detailed discussion and further citations. Early Old French sources include senses such as 'marking on birds' 'leucoma of the eye', but the predominant senses from the twelfth century onwards are 'individual link or space in a mesh' (not cited for Anglo-French in the AND, but giving the standard modern French meaning of 'stitch'); and 'link or ring in a chain or armour', found in Anglo-French. Certain forms, e.g. in Latin (1269 citation is the earliest) and most Middle English forms (from the early fourteenth century onwards) show an unexpected -s-. OED suggests that this is probably due to the influence of the word mask (q.v.), of similar meaning. Early Modern English shows forms without -s- (see OED s.v. macle) but the only pre-1500 instance for this is in Older Scots. The form macle in the senses 'coat of mail' and 'fishing net' is known in continental Old French but not Anglo-French; it could conceivably be a re-borrowing of the Latin or from Middle English; or possibly even the native survival of a Frankish *maskil, diminutive of maska 'mesh', cognate with mask (q.v.). However, in continental French macle also had the meaning 'lozenge' (attested from c. 1298), as here (see also the Anglo-Norman form masclé at mascled, and the derivative maclure). Note also French mascle (citation under sense 2a) which is probably a borrowing from Middle English. Neither mascle or macle appear as headwords in AND. It is notable that the derived heraldic terms in Latin and Anglo-French often exhibit the form with intrusive -s-. Macula has been reborrowed from Latin into English in the modern period, now mainly used in anatomical senses (a spot, either on the skin or in the eye); see OED macule, macula, with most attestations from the 18th cent. onwards, but both with precocious early instances in the fifteenth century, probably direct from Latin usage.