How the sound of paws splashing in mud became soldiers tramping round a camp at night, and then a police patrol. Tap ▶ to hear each step read aloud.
This word has no grand ancient root. It probably starts with a sound: pat-pat, the noise of paws or feet on the ground.
In the Latin spoken in Gaul, *pauta meant a paw. It became French patte, still the word for an animal’s paw.
From patte, Old French made the verb patouiller: to paddle about in mud, to splash with your paws, like a dog in a puddle.
French still has patauger, to wade or splash about.
In the 1500s, soldiers who walked round the camp at night to guard it tramped through the mud all night long. Their round was called patrouille, and to do it was patrouiller.
English took patrol in the 1660s: the soldiers’ round of the camp, and the small group that does it.
Examples: a night patrol
, to be on patrol
, to patrol the border
.
Today police, coastguards and park rangers patrol streets, beaches and forests.
Examples: a patrol car
, a beach patrol
, and in the Scouts a patrol
is a small team.
| patrolman | a police officer on patrol (American) |
| patrouille, patrouiller | French: a patrol, to patrol |
| patauger | French: to splash, to wade |
Behind patrouille is patte: a patrol is really “a lot of muddy paws”.
“A patrol is muddy paws going round the camp.”