If I were to have guessed I would have said squid came from both squalo meaning shark and squamata for reptiles like snakes. A squid is like a snake shark, so squa-ish. Add some shift in sounds over the centuries and it becomes squid.
Both squalus “shark, whale” and squamatus scaled are from Latin; typically this sort of phenomenon affects the native vocab, not erudite borrowings. And this sort of word merging is rather uncommon. Plus Old English /a/ ended as /æ/ in modern English, not as /ɪ/ (sound changes are typically regular).
Wiktionary tentatively connects it with “squirt”, that sounds a bit more likely.
If I were to have guessed I would have said squid came from both squalo meaning shark and squamata for reptiles like snakes. A squid is like a snake shark, so squa-ish. Add some shift in sounds over the centuries and it becomes squid.
How dare you!
That sounds unlikely.
Both squalus “shark, whale” and squamatus scaled are from Latin; typically this sort of phenomenon affects the native vocab, not erudite borrowings. And this sort of word merging is rather uncommon. Plus Old English /a/ ended as /æ/ in modern English, not as /ɪ/ (sound changes are typically regular).
Wiktionary tentatively connects it with “squirt”, that sounds a bit more likely.