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