caterpillar

Our common word for a butterfly or moth larva first appeared in the 1400s as catirpel. It is almost certainly borrowed from a medieval French word which we know only in modern French dialects as catepeleuse, literally, “hairy cat.” Similar applications of a name for a furry animal to fuzzy larvae are English woolly bear and French chenille, “caterpillar,” descended from Latin canicula, “little dog.”