baccalà
Italian edit
Etymology edit
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.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
baccalà m (invariable)
Further reading edit
- Roberts, Edward A. (2014) A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Spanish Language with Families of Words based on Indo-European Roots, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN