doily

The word comes from Doiley, the name of a 17th-century London draper. That surname is Anglo-Norman, derived from d'Œuilly, the name of several places in Calvados, France, which in turn traces to Old French oeil, meaning "eye."

The facts don't describe how the word shifted from a draper's shop name to the lacy mat we know today — only that it began as that surname.

The Old French root oeil ("eye") links this word's deep history to that of "eye" itself, through the place name it came from.