dodo
pronunciation
How to pronounce dodo in British English:
UK [ˈdəʊdəʊ]
How to pronounce dodo in American English:
US [ˈdoʊdoʊ]
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- Noun:
- someone whose style is out of fashion
- extinct heavy flightless bird of Mauritius related to pigeons
Word Origin
- dodo
- dodo: [17] When Portuguese explorers first encountered the unfortunate dodo on the island of Mauritius, it struck them as a clumsy and foolish bird, so they applied to it the Portuguese word doudo ‘simpleton’. The name has stuck in English (although in the 17th century it had some competition from the French and Dutch term dronte). The first record of the simile ‘dead as a dodo’ comes from 1904, over 200 years after the extinction of the species, although the word had been used since the late 19th century as a metaphor for someone or something hopelessly out of date: ‘He belongs to the Dodo race of real unmitigated toryism’, Lisle Carr, Judith Gwynne 1874.
- dodo (n.)
- 1620s, from Portuguese doudo "fool, simpleton," an insult applied by Portuguese sailors to the awkward bird (Didus ineptus) they found on Mauritius island. The last record of a living one is from 1681. Applied in English to stupid persons since 1886.
Example
- 1. Among celebrities , there is a fanny sit , moses chan , and dodo cheng .
- 2. A great little tidbit about the next version of html5 is this : the doctype went the way of the dodo .
- 3. Can he turn it around after so many controversies over the years , or is his career now deader than a dodo ?
- 4. As colleges face increasing costs , the traditional tweed-coated , pipe-smoking , comfortable-job-for-life full-time professor appears to be going the way of the dodo bird .
- 5. The dodo was done in by sailors who not only killed the birds themselves but also brought to mauritius animals such as dogs and pigs that plundered their nests .