2979: Contact Lentils Feb 16, 2025

Though definitely not anomalous, it is fairly rare for a native English noun to end with a singular letter <S>, as happens with the word ‘lens’. This is, in part, because the word is fairly new, and only invented in the late 17th century in reference to glass lenses of eyeglasses and microscopes etc.. The word comes from the Latin for ‘lentil’, in reference to a round shape with a slight convex in the center. This is seen in other languages as well as a semantic borrowing such as the Hebrew עדשות מגע (adashot mega) or similarly in Arabic, with עדשה (adasha) meaning ‘lentil’.

The difference in forms ‘lens/lentil’ is from the Latin nominative form ‘lens’ and the genitive form ‘lentis’.