e 1 c 3 h 4 e 1 l 1 o 1 n 1
7 letters · 12 points in Scrabble
Meaning
noun a body of troops arranged in a line
noun a diffraction grating consisting of a pile of plates of equal thickness arranged stepwise with a constant offset
originBorrowed from French échelon (“rung; echelon”), from échelle (“ladder”) + -on (diminutive suffix). Échelle is derived from Latin scāla (“ladder”), from scandō (“to ascend, climb”), from Proto-Indo-European *skend- (“to jump”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0