Morpheme
-el
Type
suffix
Denotation
diminutive suffix
Etymology
(1) Middle English -el; Old English -el and Old French -el and (2) from -ella; Catalan -ella; both from Latin -ella, from -ellus, variants of -ulus from rebracketing of diminutives (e.g. libellus from liber + -lus, fēmella from fēmina + -la) and diminutives of diminutives (porcellus from porculus + -lus)
Evidence
bordel, caravel, chapel, chatelain, chatelaine, chatelet, chevronel, crenel, crenelation, damsel, donzel, fardel, lapel, model, modeled, modelled, orchel, panel, paneling, panelling, porcelain, radicel, roundel, tonelada, umbrel, vorticel
Notes
<l> need not double (but can), especially with inflectional suffixes, when surfacing as <-el> because of because of the British spelling convention for unstressed final syllables that end in [əl]/[l̩]
Homographs
-el-, el-, -(e)l [-el, -l], -(e)l(e) [-le, -el, -l], El(l) [Ell, El]
