Etymology: Refashioned in the termination from Middle English corneline, < 15th cent. French corneline (now cornaline ) = Provençal, Old Spanish, and Portuguese cornelina , Spanish cornerina , Italian cornalina (in Florio cornelino ). The medieval Latin name was corneolus , common in writers de Nat. Rerum and de Lapidibus from Constantinus Africanus a1087 onwards; later also cornelius (‘corneolus, quem quidam cornelium dicunt’ Albertus Magnus, 13th cent.). See Schade, Altd. Wbch., Apparently 1378. With corneolus go Italian corniola , Old French cornéole , Middle High German corniôl , English corneole n.¹Diez referred the name to Latin cornu horn (compare especially Latin corneolus horn-like, diminutive of corneus of horn, horny), ‘because the colour is (sometimes) like that of the finger-nail’, comparing onyx n. and adj., Greek ὄνυξ nail. But grave objections to this are pointed out by Schade, who thinks the stone had its name from its likeness in colour to the Cornel-berry or Cornelian-cherry, Latin cornum , adjective corneus ; in Italian corniola was both the fruit and the stone. Late in the 15th cent. the Latin corneolus was perverted to carneolus , after carnem flesh, carneus flesh-coloured; thence an occasionally Middle High German carneôl , and the English by-form carnelian n.

Etymology: < cornel n.³: compare cornelian n.¹