You might suspect that cut is to cutlet as pig is to piglet; however, cutlet, the name of a small piece of mutton or veal cut from the ribs, is not a diminutive of the word cut. Instead, it is a diminutive of the French word cote, meaning side, or rather it is a double diminutive of that word: from cote the diminutive cotele was formed, and then from cotele the diminutive cotelete was later formed. A cutlet, therefore, is literally a little, little side, an appropriate name for the often tiny chunk of meat that some restaurants try to pass off as an entree. Cutlet did not enter English until the beginning of the eighteenth century but is closely related to two much older words: coast, the side of a continent, and accost, the action of coming up alongside someone.
A petite rib, derived from the French term cotelette, is employed to signify any diminutive cut of flesh extracted from the leg or rib section, or to a potato-based snack resembling a chop or cutlet.