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Merle

//mɝl// name, noun

Definitions

Proper Noun

1
A surname from French of French origin.
2
A female given name from English.
"Her name was Merle, and to her name she always said she owed the fact that Gilbert Vanborough ever looked at her."
3
A male given name transferred from the surname.
"Merle Haggard is a name out of a morality play. And that's the kind of songs he sings."

Noun

1
The Eurasian blackbird, Turdus merula.
2
A type of mottled coloration on dogs. countable, uncountable
3
common black European thrush wordnet
4
Any blackbird.
5
A dog having this coloration. countable, uncountable

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English merle, from Old French merle (French merle), from Latin merula (“blackbird”) (whence the directly borrowed Middle English merule, and compare the taxonomic name Turdus merula), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂mes- (“black, blackbird”). Compare Breton moualch (“ouzel”), Welsh mwyalch (“blackbird, thrush”). Distantly related to the synonymous ouzel.

Etymology 2

From French Merle.

Etymology 3

English 19th-century bird name from merle (“blackbird”), possibly also a variant of Muriel, Merrill, etc.

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