The word pellet has become an international word that has more and more meanings. Today it appears on the front line of information due to the dumping of microplastic pellets that has occurred in the Cantabrian Sea.
Perhaps its most popular meaning refers to the sticks that are used to burn in stoves, but its origin comes from the Latin pilula, which is the diminutive of pila, which meant ‘ball’.
That is why there are microplastic pellets, which are used for birth control pills and are also used for homeopathy pellets.
Now, how should it be pronounced? It is a plain word and the two L’s do not correspond to the Spanish elle, therefore: pélet. Although it does not yet appear in the RAE Dictionary, the FundéuRAE proposes this spelling for this Anglicism, which is already strongly rooted.
The fact is that before the English pellets arrived, the Castilian already had the pellets. According to the aforementioned dictionary, the word pella has the same etymology as the English pellet, but we are already too late to resurrect it informatively. Now all that remains is to Hispanicize the Anglicism so that all speakers pronounce it the same: pélets.
