Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A large flightless bird (Raphus cucullatus) with a hooked beak that inhabited the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean until it became extinct in the late 1600s.
  • noun Informal One who is out-of-date, as in dress or ideas.
  • noun Informal A stupid person; an idiot.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A recently extinct bird of Mauritius, Didus ineptus, the type of the family Dididæ and suborder Didi, now usually assigned to the order Columbæ.
  • noun [This is the earliest known English mention of the bird.]

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) A large, extinct bird (Didus ineptus), formerly inhabiting the Island of Mauritius. It had short, half-fledged wings, like those of the ostrich, and a short neck and legs; -- called also dronte. It was related to the pigeons.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A large, flightless bird, Raphus cucullatus, related to the pigeon, that is now extinct (since the 1600s) and was native to Mauritius.
  • noun figuratively A person or organisation which is very old or has very old-fashioned views or is not willing to change and adapt.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun someone whose style is out of fashion
  • noun extinct heavy flightless bird of Mauritius related to pigeons

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Portuguese dodó, alteration of obsolete Dutch dodors : Dutch dot, tuft of feathers + obsolete Dutch ors, tail (from Middle Dutch ærs; see ors- in Indo-European roots).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Portuguese doudo, “fool, simpleton, silly, stupid”. This definition is lacking an etymology or has an incomplete etymology. You can help Wiktionary by giving it a proper etymology.

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Examples

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  • What would a dewey-eyed dodo do with two huge tubes of chewy tomato-avocado-potato stew?

    September 1, 2022