The etymology of the word remains unclear, and with a vernacular context lacking it is impossible to determine whether the word should be interpreted as Anglo-Norman or Middle English.

The OED glosses the word as ‘soft white building stone’, but this is not supported by the other dictionaries or by the discussion of the word in Build 129 – which defines the word as ‘rag’, i.e. an ‘inferior variet[y] of stone’, and ornel as a ‘trade term [...] confined to Kent’.