Etymology: Cognate with Old High German nustil buckle, clasp < the Germanic base of Old High German nusta clasp + the Germanic base of Old High German -ilo -el suffix¹; compare (with o -grade and with diminutive suffix) Old Frisian nestla , Middle Dutch nestel , nastel (Dutch nestel ), Middle Low German nestel , Old High German nestel , nestila , nestilo (German (now regional) Nestel ), early modern Swedish nästel , Old Gutnish nestli , all in sense ‘band, tie, cord’, (with o -grade and without suffix) Old High German nast- (only in the compound nast-eid oath sworn by a woman on her plaits), Old Icelandic nest brooch, pin, Old Danish neste brooch, clasp, Old Gutnish nast buckle, clasp, and (with e -grade) Old Icelandic nist , nisti brooch, pin; further etymology uncertain: probably ultimately related (in a way that has not been satisfactorily explained) to the Indo-European base of node n. The Germanic word was borrowed into Finnish as nasta pin, peg, and (with diminutive suffix) into post-classical Latin as nastula (from 7th cent.; c1440 in a British source), nastola (from 9th cent.), nastale (12th cent. in a British source), nastila (12th cent.), nastilus (c1180 in a British source), nastulus (from 13th cent. in British and continental sources), in various senses including ‘brooch, clasp, cord’, and into Italian as nastro band, ribbon, tape (a1321).The stem vowel in the Scots form noozle has perhaps been altered after noose n. (compare quot. 1906 at sense 3). The γ. forms show metanalysis (see N n.). The word is found in various forms widely round the coast of Great Britain, especially in Cornwall and Devon in the south-west, and along the North Sea coast from East Anglia to the Shetland Isles.

Etymology: < norsel n.