baccalà

Meaning

1. (invariable, masculine) salt cod, stockfish
2. (figuratively, invariable, masculine) a foolish person

Concepts

stockfish

cod

dummy

salt cod

codfish

pinhead

silent person

Atlantic cod

boob

bank cod

booby

dope

dried cod

dumbbell

Synonyms

merluzzo

muto

🔇

salame

sciocco

sempliciotto

babbeo

citrullo

fregnone

sprovveduto

stoccafisso

gocciolone

baccelletto

baluba

tontolone

Translations

bacalao

bacallà

bacalhau

morue

kabeljauw

Kabeljau

Stockfisch

Dorsch

morina

cabillaud

βακαλάος

μπακαλιάρος

merluça

Hyphenated as

bac‧ca‧là

Pronounced as (IPA)

/bak.kaˈla/

Etymology

From Dutch bakkeljauw, 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”)).
Cognate with Sicilian baccalaru, Catalan bacallà, Portuguese bacalhau, Spanish bacalao.