(Florio.)
Umber is Fr. terre d'ombre, shadow earth—
"I'll put myself in poor and mean attire,
And with a kind of umber smirch my face."
(As You Like It, i. 3.)
Ballad, originally a dancing song, Prov. ballada, is a doublet of ballet, and thus related to ball. We find a late Lat. ballare, to dance, in Saint Augustine, but the history of this group of words is obscure. The sense development of carol is very like that of ballad. It is from Old Fr. carolle, "a kinde of dance wherein many may dance together; also, a carroll, or Christmas song" (Cotgrave). The form corolla is found in Provençal, and carolle in Old French is commonly used, like Ger. Kranz, garland, and Lat. corona, of a social or festive ring of people. Hence it seems a reasonable conjecture that the origin of the word is Lat. corolla, a little garland.
TOCSIN—MERINO
Many "chapel" people would be shocked to know that chapel means properly the sanctuary in which a saint's relics are deposited. The name was first applied to the chapel in which was preserved the cape or cloak of St Martin of Tours. The doublet capel survives in Capel Court, near the Exchange. Ger. Kapelle also means orchestra or military band. Tocsin is literally "touch sign." Fr. toquer, to tap, beat, cognate with touch, survives in "tuck of drum" and tucket—
"Then let the trumpets sound
The tucket sonance and the note to mount."
(Henry V., iv. 2.)
while sinet, the diminutive of Old Fr. sin, sign, has given sennet, common in the stage directions of Elizabethan plays in a sense very similar to that of tucket.