a suffix found in French loanwords of Latin origin, originally diminutive nouns, and later in adaptations of words borrowed directly from Latin or in Neo-Latin coinages:
article; conventicle; corpuscle; particle.
Origin
< French,Old French < Latin-culus, -cula, -culum, variant of -ulus-ule with nouns of the 3rd, 4th and 5th declensions, usually with the same gender as the base noun
-cle2
1.
a suffix found in French loanwords of Latin origin, later in adaptations of words borrowed directly from Latin; in Latin, this suffix formed from verbs nouns that denoted a place appropriate to the action of the verb (cubicle, receptacle) or a means by which the action is performed (vehicle).
Origin
< French,Old French < Latin-culum, -cula < *-tlom,*-tlā