The Etymology of Mascot
Mascot is a 19th-century import. French 'mascotte' meant a lucky charm, and the word was lifted into French from Provençal 'mascoto,' a diminutive of 'masco' (witch). Edmond Audran's 1880 comic opera 'La Mascotte' — about a farm girl whose presence brings supernatural good fortune — made the word a household term across Europe almost overnight. English borrowed it in 1881, and within a few years American baseball clubs and military regiments were adopting human and animal mascots. The semantic softening from 'witch' to 'lucky figure' is typical of borrowed magical vocabulary: the original eerie meaning fades, and what remains is the protective function.