| 词汇 | dead as a dodo |
| 词源 | dead as a dodo; dodo. The hapless dodo left behind as its ep- itaph both its common name, which has become a synonym for stupidity and extinction, and its scientific name Didus in- eptus, which says about the same for it. Barely a century after it was discovered by man on the islands of Reunion and Mauri- tius, east of Madagascar, the heavy, flightless bird became ex- tinct. Dodoes were not only big (larger than a swan), but they were barely able to run, and the colonists who settled the is- lands, along with their pigs, found them delicious. By the early 18th century gone was the short-winged bird that seemed “to have been invented for the sole purpose of becoming extinct,” leaving behind only its sad story and a synonym for something utterly gone or a hopelessly dumb person. Dodo is a corruption of the Portuguese dondo, silly. |
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