Et, as in trumpet, lancet, pocket; the word pock, as in meal-pock = a meal-bag, being found in the Scottish. From the French -ette, as in caissette, poulette.
The forms -rel, as in cockerel, pickerel, and -let, as in streamlet, require a separate consideration. The first has nothing to do with the Italian forms acquerella and coserella—themselves, perhaps, of Gothic, rather than of classical origin.
In the Old High-German there are a multitude of diminutive forms in -el; as ouga = an eye, ougili = a little eye; lied = a song, liedel = a little song. This indicates the nature of words like cockerel.
Even in English the diminutive power of -el can be traced in the following words:—
Soare = a deer in its third year. Sor-rel—a deer in its second year.—See "Love's Labour Lost," with the note.
Tiercel = a small sort of hawk, one-third less (tierce) than the common kind.
Kantle = small corner, from cant = a corner.—"Henry IV."
Hurdle; in Dutch horde; German, hurde. Hording, without the -l, is used in an allied sense by builders in English.
In the words in point we must assume an earlier form, cocker and piker, to which the diminutive form -el is affixed. If this be true, we have, in English, representatives of the diminutive form -el so common in the High Germanic dialects. Wolfer = a wolf, hunker = a haunch, flitcher = a flitch, teamer = a team, fresher = a frog,—these are north country forms of the present English.