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I would like to know what process suffered the Latin word marmor when it was borrowed in French and became marbre. I know that the process from French marbre to English marble is dissimilation, i.e. change from r to l, but I don't really know how to explain the change of the ending -BRE in Latin for -MOR in French.

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    Marmorem to marb(o)rem is also dissimilation: m_m becomes m_b to be less similar.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    May 9 at 17:16
  • It's not -mor to -bre, but -more(m) to -bre, because most Romance words come from the accusative.
    – LjL
    May 9 at 18:42
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    Latin /r/ and /l/ dissimilate in many words. Consider colonel/coronel, marmor/marble, and the Latin adjectival suffix -al/-ar,
    – jlawler
    May 9 at 20:31
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    -more -> -mre (by syncope) -> -mbre (by epenthesis). Compare English thimble <- OE þȳmel.
    – Colin Fine
    May 9 at 22:46

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