Meaning

noun ten-armed oval-bodied cephalopod with narrow fins as long as the body and a large calcareous internal shell

originFrom Middle English cutil, codel, codul, from Old English cudele (“cuttlefish”), a diminutive from Proto-Germanic *kudilǭ, from Proto-Germanic *kuddô + -ilǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *gewt- (“pouch, sack”), from *gew- (“to bend, bow, arch, vault, curve”). Equivalent to cod + -le (diminutive suffix). Compare dialectal German Kudele (“cuttlefish”), Norwegian kaule (“cuttlefish”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0