Kegel

Etymology
From, from , , especially pegs for a tent (zeltchegil) or similar. 🇨🇬 means “peg or pin used for a game” (such as skittles), but regional use from the 14th century onward also preserve a more general meaning of “peg, cudgel”.

The etymology cannot be traced with certainty. The word is a member of a Wortsippe which also includes, 🇨🇬 and.

No cognates of are known outside of German (other than loans from German in Dutch, Scandinavian as well as Baltic and Slavic languages). 🇨🇬 seems to be a reflex of an Old Frankish form of the word. 🇨🇬 has diverse proposed origins. The German word is closely related, compared by Grimm to the relationship of 🇨🇬 with. In some dialects, was used as the term for both “wedge” and “bowling pin”.

Also closely related is. All these terms developed in context of the game of skittles. The relation of to  (both terms for the pin) was the same as that of  to  (both terms for the ball; the former remained dialectal, while  became the generic term for "sphere").

For the development of the sense of an illegitimate son compare 🇨🇬,, and the like.

Noun

 * 1) skittle, ninepin, bowling pin; pin
 * 2)  any heap or peak of conical or pyramidal shape, especially of feces, hay, brushwood, of mountains and of the tip of a helmet
 * 3)  cone
 * 4)  ruffian, bastard illegitimate child