The building blocks of English

Affixes

-le1

Also ‑el.

Forming nouns.

Either from Old English, or from Middle English ‑el, ‑elle (partly from Old English and partly from Old French words based on Latin forms).

One group, from Old English, contains the names of agents or instruments: handle, saddle, shuttle, sickle, thimble, whistle; less commonly it is used for animals and plants, or parts of them: apple, beetle, bramble, bristle, cockle.

A second set either have or originally had a diminutive sense: castle (a diminutive of Latin castrum, a fort), cobble (from cob, a rounded lump), girdle (probably from gird), nozzle (from nose), puddle (from Old English pudd, a ditch or furrow).

In some cases, the older form ‑el has been retained where the rules of English spelling and pronunciation do not permit the change to ‑le after certain letters: satchel, angel, kennel, kestrel, bushel, brothel, shovel. See also ‑rel.

The suffix is not used to make new words.