caille

From Middle French, from Old French quaille, from Old Dutch *kwakila, Frankish *kwakla (compare Dutch kwakkel), blend of kwak (“quack”) and *hwahtila (“quail”) (compare dialectal Dutch wachtel), diminutive of Proto-Indo-European *kʷoḱt-. See also the word quaccola, attested in the Reichenau glosses, and qualea. Compare also the related Occitan calha, Italian quaglia, and other Romance cognates; some alternative etymologies derive these from a Late Latin coacula, of imitative origin, although this is uncertain. More at quail, Wachtel.

• IPA^(key): /kɑj/

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caille (plural cailles)

1. multicoloured, spotted.
   • 1881, "Le boute-selle" in French Nursery Rhymes, Librarie Hachette & cie, page 25:

     A Versailles, à Versailles, / Sur la queue d’un’ grand’ vach’ caille.

     To Versailles, to Versailles, / On the tail of a big spotted cow.

caille f (plural cailles)

1. quail

• (Louisiana) perdrix

caille

1. inflection of cailler:
   1. first/third-person singular indicative/subjunctive present
   2. second-person singular imperative

• “caille” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• IPA^(key): /ˈkal͈ʲe/

Borrowed from Latin pallium. Doublet of paillium.

caille n

1. veil

   Synonym: bréit

• Middle Irish: caille
  • Irish: caille

See the etymology of the main entry.

caille f

1. genitive singular of caill