morse

Morse comes from Middle French mors, from Latin morsus, meaning "bite" or "clasp," itself from the verb mordere, "to bite."

The word kept its literal sense of gripping or biting as it moved from Latin into French and then English, settling into the specific meaning of a clasp or fastening, such as the one used to close a cleric's cope.

There's a second, unrelated English word spelled the same way meaning "walrus," whose origin is uncertain — possibly from Proto-Samic *moršë, related to Russian морж and Finnish mursu. The facts don't connect the two morses; they simply happen to share a spelling.