Other forms: dodos
A dodo is a heavy flightless bird now extinct. Dead as a dodo, the last dodo.
It lived only on Mauritius and was gone within about a century of sailors arriving, which is why it stands for extinction. Dead as a dodo is now used of ideas and machines far more often than of anything alive.
1noundodoA heavy flightless bird now extinct.
“The dodo was gone within a century of the first ships arriving.”
dodo is a bird.
The name is first recorded in the seventeenth century, perhaps from Portuguese doudo, a simpleton, or from Dutch dodaars.
Dutch
dodaars
Portuguese
doudo — fool, simpleton, silly, stupid
English, today
dodo
unknown. Perhaps from obsolete Portuguese doudo (“fool, simpleton, silly, stupid”) or Dutch dodaars. First attested in the 17th century.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA