1706, "small piece of meat," especially veal or mutton, cut horizontally from the upper part of the leg, from French côtelette, from Old French costelette "little rib" (14c.), a double diminutive of coste "rib, side," from Latin costa (see coast (n.)); influenced by unrelated English cut (n.).

veal cutlet (especially short for Wiener schnitzel, the style served in Vienna), 1854, from German Schnitzel "cutlet," literally "a slice," with -el, diminutive suffix + Schnitz "a cut, slice" from schnitzen "to carve," frequentative of schneiden "to cut," from Old High German snidan, from Proto-Germanic *sneithanan (source also of Old English sniþan, Middle Dutch sniden, Old Frisian snida, -snitha). This is sometimes said to be from a PIE root *sneit- "to cut," but Boutkan gives no IE etymology and has it as "Likely to be a North European substratum etymon."

1951, from Polish kiełbasa "sausage" (cognate with Russian kolbasa, Serbo-Croatian kobasica); perhaps from Turkish kulbasti, "grilled cutlet," literally "pressed on the ashes." Or perhaps, via Jewish butchers, from Hebrew kolbasar "all kinds of meat."