Origin and history of viola

"stringed musical instrument, violin," late 14c., fedele, fydyll, fidel, earlier fithele, from Old English fiðele "fiddle," which is related to Old Norse fiðla, Middle Dutch vedele, Dutch vedel, Old High German fidula, German Fiedel "a fiddle;" all of uncertain origin.

The usual suggestion, based on resemblance in sound and sense, is that it is from Medieval Latin vitula "stringed instrument" (source of Old French viole, Italian viola), which perhaps is related to Latin vitularia "celebrate joyfully," from Vitula, Roman goddess of joy and victory, who probably, like her name, originated among the Sabines [Klein, Barnhart]. Unless the Medieval Latin word is from the Germanic ones.

FIDDLE, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat. [Ambrose Bierce, "The Cynic's Word Book," 1906]

Fiddle has been relegated to colloquial usage by its more proper cousin, violin, a process encouraged by phraseology such as fiddlesticks (1620s), contemptuous nonsense word fiddle-de-dee (1784), and fiddle-faddle. Century Dictionary [1895] reports that fiddle "in popular use carries with it a suggestion of contempt and ridicule." Fit as a fiddle is from 1610s.

small wild plant with purplish-blue flowers, c. 1300, from Old French violete (12c.), diminutive of viole "violet," from Latin viola "the violet, a violet color," cognate with Greek ion (see iodine), probably from a pre-Indo-European substrate Mediterranean language.

The color name (late 14c., violet-blu) developed from the flower; compare Latin violaceus "of a violet color," borrowed in English 1650s as violaceous. There is also a Middle English violate (adj.) "flavored with violets" (mid-15c.). Related: Violescent "tending to a violet color."