There are two ways to spell this very specific thing, the plastic or metal shoelace tip that makes it fit more easily through the eyelets in your shoes: aglet and aiglet. Sometimes the aglet makes your life easier, and in other cases it's just for decoration. The Middle French root is aiguillette, a diminutive of aiguille, "needle," from the Latin acus, which also means "needle," by way of its own diminutive, the Late Latin acucula.