An easel's an upright support used for displaying and/or fixing something resting upon it. The word's an old Germanic synonym for donkey (compare similar semantics); its equivalent's the only word for both animal and apparatus in various languages, such as Esel in German and Afrikaans and earlier ezel in Dutch (the easel generally in full schildersezel, 'painter's donkey'), themselves derived from Latin Asinus (hence ass), interestingly in Danish the word's staffeli and donkey's æsel. Easel… (More on Easel)