merlin

Etymology 1

From Middle English merlioun, merlion, marlyon, merlyon, merlinge, from Old French emerillon, esmerillon, from Old Frankish *smiril (“falcon, hawk”), from Proto-Germanic *smirilaz (“falcon, merlin”). Cognate with Old High German smirl (“falcon”), Old Norse smyrill (“falcon”).

noun

1. A small falcon, Falco columbarius, that breeds in northern North America, Europe, and Asia.
   The gentle falcon, that with its feet distraineth / The kingës hand; the hardy sperhawke eke, / The quailës foe; the merlion that paineth / Himself full oft the larkë for to seek; …] [c. 1381–1382, Geoffrey Chaucer, Parlement of Foules; republished as “The Assembly of Fowls”, in D[avid] Laing Purves, editor, The Canterbury Tales and Faerie Queene: With Other Poems of Chaucer and Spenser.[…], Edinburgh: William P. Nimmo, 1874, →OCLC, page 220, column 2
   Smaller and less powerful falcons included the merlon, the hobby, and the kesterel. 1991, Thomas S. Henricks, “Sport in Feudal England”, in Disputed Pleasures: Sport and Society in Preindustrial England (Contributions to the Study of World History; 28), Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, Greenwood Publishing Group, →ISSN, page 23

Etymology 2

Acronym of moesin-Ezrin-Radixin-like protein + -in (“protein”)

noun

1. (biochemistry) A cytoskeletal protein active in the suppression of tumors.