Other forms: anklets
An anklet is a light chain worn around the lower leg. A silver anklet, wear an anklet, a beaded anklet.
It is ancient and worn across South Asia, the Middle East and Africa, often in pairs and often with small bells. In English the word also names a short sock reaching just above the ankle, which is chiefly American. Note that the word was formed on the model of bracelet — ankle plus -et — which is unusual, since English rarely borrows a French ending to attach to a native word.
1nounankletA light chain worn around the lower leg.
“She wore a silver anklet with tiny bells that jingled as she danced.”
anklet is a piece of jewellery.
Ankle plus -et, formed on the model of bracelet in the nineteenth century. Ankle is Old English and the -et is French, which makes it a hybrid.
Middle English
ancle
English
ankle
English, today
anklet
Built from
From ankle + et, based on bracelet. ankle comes from Middle English ancle. From Middle English ankel, ancle, ankyll, from Old English ancol (compare anclēow (“ankle”) > Modern English anclef, ancliff, ancley), from Proto-West Germanic ankul, from Proto-Germanic ankulaz (“ankle”); akin to Icelandic ökkla, ökli, Danish and Swedish ankel, Dutch enkel, enklaauw, German Enkel, Old Norse akka, Old Frisian anckel, and perhaps Old High German encha, ancha (“thigh, shin”), from the Proto-Germanic ankijǭ (“ankle, joint”). Compare with Sanskrit अङ्ग (“limb”), अङ्गुरि (“finger”), Latin angulus. Compare haunch and Greek prefix ἀγκυλο- (“joint, crooked, bent”). a doublet of angulus and angle.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA