cordel

string (thin thread); twine (thin cord or rope); chain (surverying or measuring rope, typically of 50 or 100 varas); cordel, Spanish chain (a traditional unit of length equivalent to about 41.9 m in 19th-century Spain)

Borrowed from Catalan cordell (“cord, string”), from Vulgar Latin *cordellus (“little rope, cord, string”), from Latin chorda (“rope, cord”) + -ellus (“-elle: forming diminutives”). Equivalent to corda + -el.