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dory

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Etymology and origin of the English word dory

Pronunciation

  • /ˈdɔːɹi/[1]

dory1 fish

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1440
Borrowed from
Old French doree via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Latin aurum

Etymology

The fish is inherited from Middle English dorre, also dorray,[2][3] borrowed from Old French doree,[4][5][6][7] in French dorée,[2][8] originally the feminine past participle of dorer (“to gild”).[4][8][7][9] The French verb is from Late Latin deaurō (“to gild over”),[5][6][10] formed from dē-, here probably intensive, and aurō (“to gild”), from aurum (“gold”).[4][7][11] Klein glosses the French noun as "the gilded one",[9] and Etymonline explains the name by the fish's colouring.[4] The fish word is related to dorado and aureate.[9][12][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The fish Zeus faber of European seas, valued as food: Etymonline dates the word to the mid-14th century,[4] Hoad to the 14th century in the form darre,[6] and the OED's first quotation is from a cookery collection of about 1440.[8]

Semantic evolution

Cotgrave's French–English dictionary (1611), quoted by the OED and Weekley, explains French dorée as "the Doree, or Saint Peters fish", and also, "though not so properly", the goldfish.[8][12] Weekley notes that the fish is now often called the John Dory,[12][13] and modern dictionaries use dory for the John Dory and the related fishes of its family.[14][2][7] In North America the name, also spelled doré, was given to the walleye, a freshwater perch,[15][14][2] and DARE records it from 1877, in a bulletin of the United States National Museum.[15][14][2]

Timeline

  • c. 1440 – the fish Zeus faber.[8] Etymonline dates the word to the mid-14th century.[4]
  • 1611 – French dorée glossed "Saint Peters fish" by Cotgrave.[8][12]
  • 1877 – the walleye, in North America.[15]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The John Dory or any related marine food fish with a deep, flattened body and spiny fins.[14][2][7]
  2. (North America) The walleye.[14][2][15]

dory2 flat-bottomed boat

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1709 John Lawson, A New Voyage to Carolina
Borrowed from
Miskito duri

Etymology

The boat is probably borrowed from Miskito duri (“a kind of small boat”),[8] a word that Merriam-Webster gives as dóri or dúri, a dugout canoe.[2][10][7] Miskito is an indigenous language of Honduras and Nicaragua.[16][14] Barnhart and the Shorter Oxford call the origin uncertain,[16][7] Etymonline suggests only a West Indian or Central American Indian language,[4] Weekley thought it unknown,[12] and Dictionary.com adds that the Miskito word may itself come from English.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A canoe or small round-bottomed boat of Central America and the Caribbean: 1709, in John Lawson's New Voyage to Carolina.[8][16][2]

Semantic evolution

Barnhart and Dictionary.com record the word as an Americanism.[16][3] From 1726, in the Boston Gazette, it named the small flat-bottomed rowing boat with a raised bow and stern used for fishing in New England and Atlantic Canada,[8] the sense the American dictionaries now give first: a boat with high flaring sides and a narrow V-shaped stern, used on the New England coast and by the crews of American fishing vessels.[2][14] The OED notes that French doris, used from 1847 for the North American craft, apparently comes from the English plural, and that some English spellings followed it.[8] Weekley labelled the word as used in the United States and the West Indies.[12]

Timeline

  • 1709 – a canoe or small boat in Central America and the Caribbean.[8][2][16]
  • 1726 – a flat-bottomed fishing boat of New England.[8]
  • 1847 – French doris, from the English plural.[8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A small flat-bottomed rowing boat with high, flaring sides and a sharp bow, used especially by fishermen off New England and Atlantic Canada: Each schooner carried a stack of dories on deck.[2][14][8]
  2. In Central America and the Caribbean, a canoe or small round-bottomed boat; a dugout.[8][7]

Word family

  • doryman
  • dorado
  • aureate
  • John Dory

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  12. ^ a b c d e f Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  15. ^ a b c d 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
  16. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Dory.” Etymologically, 2 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/dory. Accessed 2 Nov. 2026.

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