French for 'melted,' from Latin 'fundere' (to pour) — literally 'the melted thing,' kin to 'foundry,' 'fuse,' and 'confuse.'
A Swiss dish of melted cheese or chocolate, served in a communal pot into which food is dipped.
From French "fondue," the feminine past participle of "fondre" ("to melt"), from Latin "fundere" ("to pour, to melt, to cast"), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰewd- ("to pour"). The PIE root is spectacularly productive: it gave Greek "χέω" (khéō, "I pour"), Gothic "giutan" ("to pour"), Old English "gēotan" ("to pour," yielding English "gut" via the sense of a channel), Old Norse "gjóta" ("to pour, to spawn"), German "gießen" ("to pour, to cast"), and Dutch "gieten." In Latin, "fundere" generated an enormous word
'Fondue,' 'foundry,' 'font,' 'fuse,' 'confuse,' 'refuse,' and 'infuse' all come from Latin 'fundere' (to pour/melt). Fondue is melted cheese. A foundry melts metal. A font was originally a 'fount' (something poured). To fuse is to melt together. To confuse is to 'pour together' into disorder. To refuse is to 'pour back.' To infuse is to 'pour in.' All pouring, all melting, from pot