Old French Carole

The chief meanings of this word as registered by Godefroy, are ‘ round dance’ and ‘circle’. The difficulty lies in whether it is to be traced to a Celtic etymon or to the Latin choraules ‘a flute player’. Skeat in the second edition of his English Etymological Dictionary suggested the Celtic origin. He was severely criticized by C. Nigra, in the following terms Le prof. Skeat appuie son étymologie celtique sur l'autorité du Cornish Lexicon de Williams et cite, entre autres, les termes bret. karoll , corn. carol , gael. carull, etc. ‘song’ dont cependant la provenance française semble bien évident.