DCHP-1 Online
baccalao Various spellings. [< Pg. bacalhao codfish] 
1a n. Hist. codfish, Gadus morrhua.
- 1555 (1869) The Brytons and Frenche men are accustomed to take fysshe in the coastes of these landes, where is fownd great plenty of Tunnies which the inhabytauntes caul Baccalaos, whereof the lande was so named.
- 1841 In the annals of the town of Dieppe, in France, there is authentic evidence to show, that the inhabitants of that town did carry on Baccalo fisheries, on the coast of Newfoundland, and before the year 1500.
- 1962 Bacalhao survives in its Portuguese form in Bacalhao Island and in a French adaptation of the Portuguese in Baccalieu Island.
1b n. dried codfish.
- 1779 (1792) The ship now has on board seven hundred and fifty-eight tierces of salmon, and five hundred and thirty-four quintals of bacaleau, or dried cod-fish.
- 1905 The word bacallaos is a Romance word, found in all the Romance languages for dried cod-fish.
2 in coastal Labrador and northeast Newfoundland, any of several birds of the family Alcidae, as the puffin, Fratercula artica, the razor-billed auk, Alca torda, the common murre, Uria aalge, and the thick-billed murre, U. lomvia.
See also: baccalao bird
- 1555 (1869) The Brytons and Frenche men are accustomed to take fysshe in the coastes of these landes, where is fownd great plenty of Tunnies which the inhabytauntes caul Baccalaos, whereof the lande was so named.