baccalà

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Italian

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Etymology

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From Dutch bakaliaw, of uncertain origin. Possibly from Latin baculum (stick, staff), referring to the way cod were split and dried on wooden sticks.

If the element *bak- is a metathesis of *kab- (compare French cabillaud and German Kabeljau from Dutch kabeljauw), then the original form of the word could have been *cabalao, maybe meaning "large-headed fish" (cf. Ibero-Romance words, such as Spanish cabo, cabal, from Latin caput (head)). (Can this(+) etymology be sourced?)

Cognate with Sicilian baccalaru, Catalan bacallà, Portuguese bacalhau, Spanish bacalao.

English Wikipedia has an article on:
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Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /bak.kaˈla/*
  • Rhymes: -a
  • Hyphenation: bac‧ca‧là

Noun

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baccalà m (invariable)

  1. salt cod, stockfish
  2. (figurative) a foolish person

Further reading

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  • Roberts, Edward A. (2014) A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Spanish Language with Families of Words based on Indo-European Roots, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN