dorado

Etymology

It is borrowed from Spanish dorado (“gilded”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} the past participle of dorar (“to gild”),^[3][6][7] from Late Latin deaurātus, the past participle of deaurō (“to gild over”),^[8][4][5] formed from dē- (here probably intensive) and aurō (“to gild”), from aurum (“gold”).^[3][7][6] The Spanish word corresponds to French doré and Italian dorato,^[2] and the same Latin verb, through French, gave the fish name dory.^[2][4][7][3] Hobson-Jobson took the name as Portuguese.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The fish Coryphaena hippurus, known for its splendid colouring and its speed: 1604, in Edward Grimestone's translation of José de Acosta's natural and moral history of the Indies.^[2][6] Etymonline dates it to about 1600, and Dictionary.com to 1595–1605.^[3][10]

Semantic evolution

The fish was named from its golden colours,^[11][3] which Hendrickson notes poets such as Byron praised as they change on the dying fish.^[11] In English it was often confused with the dolphin: a 1669 translation of Mandelslo says the English "confound" the dorado with the dolphin,^[12] and the fish is still also called a dolphin, though it is not related to the mammal.^[11][13][2] In the 1640s Sir Thomas Browne used dorado figuratively for a rich man, in Religio Medici, a sense that soon died out.^[2][12] The southern constellation Dorado was among those added by the Dutch navigators Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman on their voyage of 1595–97 for the cartographer Petrus Plancius;^[3] it is pictured as a dolphinfish or swordfish, and was also called Xiphias.^[6][2][4] In the 19th century the name was also given to a golden South American river fish of the characin family, through American Spanish.^[2][4][6]

Timeline

• 1604 – the fish Coryphaena hippurus; dolphinfish.^[2][6]
• 1643 – figuratively, a rich man (obsolete by 1660).^[2][12]
• 1669 – the southern constellation Dorado.^[6] The OED's first quotation for it is from 1813, and the Shorter Oxford dates it to the late 17th century.^[2][4]
• 1871 – a South American river fish (Salminus).^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large, brightly coloured game fish of warm seas (Coryphaena hippurus), also called dolphinfish, dolphin or mahi-mahi.^{[6][14][4][2]}
2. A large golden characin of South American rivers (Salminus), resembling a salmon and fished for sport.^[6][14][4]
3. Dorado: a small constellation of the southern sky, between Pictor and Reticulum, containing part of the Large Magellanic Cloud.^[14][15][4]
4. (obsolete, 1643–1660) A wealthy man.^[2][12]

Related words

• dory
• El Dorado
• aureate
• oriole

Usage notes

Merriam-Webster Unabridged records the less common spellings dourade and dourado,^[6] and the Dictionary of American Regional English has dourade as an American name for the fish.^[16] Hendrickson notes that the reason for calling this fish a dolphin is unknown.^[11]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Yule, Henry; Burnell, A. C. (1903), Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, new ed. by William Crooke, London: John Murray
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b c d Hendrickson, Robert (2008), The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 4th ed., New York: Facts on File
12. ^ a b c d Skeat, Walter W.; Mayhew, A. L. (1914), A Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Smyth, W. H. (1867), The Sailor's Word-Book: An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, London: Blackie and Son
14. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
16. ^ Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press