admiral

Origin: From etc., from and etc., from , admirallus, and admiralius, from irregular modification of amiralis etc. under the influence of the prefix ad- and particularly admiror, from + -al. The ending is frequently but mistakenly folk etymologized to derive from the article ال, particularly in , first attested as a Fatimid office, or in . It seems instead to have been borrowed from modification of only the first term in as used as a title for important commanders in Norman Sicily in the mid-12th century. First attested as an English rank in reference to Gervase Alard of Winchelsea as "admiral of th. Origin information sourced from Wiktionary contributors (CC BY-SA 4.0).