Ethel

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A feminine first name of English origin, traditionally given to girls and women
2. A woman's given name of Old English origin, popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
3. A personal name borne by females, derived from an Old English word meaning noble

Etymology: Ethel began as an ordinary Old English word, "ǣþel" or "ēþel", meaning homeland, native land, or ancestral estate. Its root sense was a family's inherited property and the land it belonged to, so the name carries a sense of rootedness and belonging from the start. Its use as a woman's given name is a later, learned development. Writers revived the old word as a personal name, and it was used for girls in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when it was among the fashionable names of the period.