ankle + -et

Anklet is a straightforward English formation: ankle (from Old English ancleow, from Proto-Germanic *ankulaz) plus the diminutive suffix -et. The word appears in English in the early nineteenth century. The object is ancient. Gold and silver ankle bracelets appear in Sumerian royal tombs at Ur, dating to roughly 2500 BCE. The word is new; the practice of decorating the ankle is older than most civilizations.

In South Asian culture, anklets — called payal in Hindi, from the Sanskrit pādajālam — are among the most symbolically loaded pieces of jewelry. Married women wear silver anklets with small bells (ghungroo) that announce their presence. The sound is the point. In classical Indian dance forms like Bharatanatyam, the ankle bells are musical instruments — dancers wear hundreds of bells and control their sound with precise footwork. The anklet is a percussion section worn on the body.

Western attitudes toward anklets have oscillated. In ancient Egypt, anklets indicated social status. In some African traditions, heavy brass anklets marked wealth. In parts of the historical slave trade, iron ankle rings were shackles. In twentieth-century America, anklets became associated with casual beachwear, then with sexual availability in certain subcultures, then with fashion. The same ornament, radically different readings.

The ankle bracelet used for criminal monitoring — the electronic tag that tracks parolees — first appeared in the 1980s. Judge Jack Love of Albuquerque, New Mexico, got the idea from a Spider-Man comic strip in 1977 in which the villain attached a tracking device to Spider-Man's wrist. The monitoring anklet is not jewelry, but it is an ankle bracelet. The word now names both ornament and surveillance.