1640: bridle and thimble Jun 11, 2019

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Both 'bridle' and 'thimble' have the suffix '-le' which historically was used to form the name of appliances. In the case of 'bridle', this comes from the 'bit' put into the horse's mouth. While the word would have originally been something like 'bittle', it has since changed into something that could not exist without the historical suffix and still be meaningful. In the case of 'thimble', again, the word has changed a slightly since the initial form, which came from 'thumb'. There will be more on this tomorrow.
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