flotilla

Flotilla comes from Spanish flotilla, a diminutive form of flota, meaning "fleet." Flota itself traces back to French flotte.

The word entered English as a direct borrowing from Spanish, keeping its sense of a small or lesser fleet of ships rather than shifting meaning along the way.

It shares a root with flota, the Spanish word for "fleet," which came from French flotte — making flotilla essentially "fleet" with a diminutive twist.