Parmelee

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A family name of English origin, carried by people in the United States and elsewhere, often traced to early colonial settlers
2. A surname borne by numerous American families, typically descended from seventeenth-century English immigrants to New England
3. The name of an old English-derived family that became common in North America through colonial-era settlement

Etymology: Parmelee is chiefly a surname, and its best-documented history is in America. Families of that name appear in colonial New England records, most prominently in Connecticut, where early settlers carried it from England or the Continent. Its exact derivation is uncertain. Its form suggests a French-speaking origin, though no single source for the name is firmly established. Because the name began as a family designation rather than a common noun, it has no dictionary meaning of its own. Its spread was shaped by the migrations and marriages of the families who bore it, not by any change in sense. Readers who meet it as a place name or a brand should treat those uses as separate, later borrowings from the surname.