'appellee' originates from French, specifically the word 'appelé', where the root 'appel-' meant 'called' (past participle of French 'appeler').

'appellee' changed from the French legal term 'appelé' and was adopted into English legal usage as 'appellee' to denote the person called in an appeal; the formation parallels English agentive/recipient nouns formed with the suffix '-ee'.

Initially, it meant 'the one who was called', but over time it evolved into its current legal meaning of 'the party against whom an appeal is taken'.