cork

English cork comes from Middle English cork ("oak bark, cork"), borrowed from Middle Dutch curc, which itself came either from Spanish corcho or Old Spanish alcorque ("cork sole"). Further back, corcho traces to Latin cortex, meaning bark or rind — making cork a doublet of cortex.

The word began by naming oak bark itself, then narrowed to the material and objects made from it, like stoppers and soles, as it passed from Spanish into Dutch and finally into English.

Cork is a doublet of cortex, both descending from the same Latin word for bark or rind — one term stayed close to its Latin roots in science, the other wandered through Dutch and Spanish shoemaking before settling into everyday English.