fils

son; any male descendant; any direct descendant, male or female; Jr. (postnominal designator indicating a son with the same name as the father); darling, dear (term of affection for a male beloved)

Inherited from Old French fils, fiz, fil, from Latin filius (“son”). Cognate to Spanish hijo, Portuguese filho, , Italian figlio and Romanian fiu, among others. Final -s regularly became mute before consonants in late Old French but was then still pronounced in pausa. In the 18th century, these pausal forms widely fell out of use; they remained, however, as variants in a small number of words (cf. tous, ours). By the 20th century, the regular pronunciation /fi/ had become archaic or dialectal.