Chattel comes from Old French chatel ('property, goods'), from Late Latin capitāle ('property, stock'), from Latin caput ('head'). A doublet of cattle. The historical trail runs through chatel in Old French, capitāle in Latin, and caput in Latin. Used as a noun, chattel now means "an item of movable personal property", so the present definition can be read against the older forms and meanings. The same lexical family is also visible in related forms such as cattle and capital. The result is a borrowed or transmitted form whose modern spelling carries a compact record of its route into English.