dodo [E17th] The dodo was a large, heavily built flightless bird found on Mauritius in the Indian Ocean until it was hunted to extinction, because, apparently, of its lack of fear of human beings. When sailors and colonists came to the island in the 16th and 17th centuries they discovered that it was very easy to catch and kill, a characteristic which gave it its name: dodo comes from Portuguese duodo, meaning ‘simpleton’. By the end of the 17th century the dodo had died out. Its fate prompted the expression as dead as a dodo [E20th], ‘completely dead or extinct’.