Easel is a Dutch joke that English took literally. The Dutch word ezel means "easel," but its original and still current sense is "ass" or "donkey" — the frame that holds a painting up was named for the beast that carries a load. Behind the Dutch is Latin asinus, the same word that gives English ass.
English borrowed it in the 1590s, and the metaphor is a common one: compare sawhorse in English, chevalet — "little horse" — in French, and cavalletto in Italian, all naming a wooden support after an animal that bears burdens. Easel belongs to the art-and-trade layer of Dutch borrowings that also gave English landscape, sketch and etching, arriving in the century when Dutch painting was the most admired in Europe.
easel (n.) 1590s, from Dutch ezel "easel," originally "ass," from Middle Dutch esel , from Latin asinus "ass" (see ass (n.1)); the comparison being of loading a burden on a donkey and propping up a painting or canvas on a wooden stand (compare sawhorse , French chevalet , Italian cavalletto ). also from 1590s
easel came in through Later and wider borrowings, and its spelling follows that family's conventions.
What gives it away on the page
| sea, trade, and art vocabulary | Dutch and Low German, from centuries of shipping and painting.skipper, deck, yacht, sloop, dock, easel, landscape, boss |
Placing it without the spelling
| sailing, trade, and painting | Dutchdeck, sloop, yacht, easel |
Later and wider borrowings in the spelling guide · guess another word's family