Etymology

haddock

H4A1D2D2O1C3K5

Today it means: A saltwater fish, Melanogrammus aeglefinus, of the North Atlantic, important as a food fish. Full definition →

Middle English haddok ← Anglo-Norman hadoc ← Old French hadot
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The story

  1. Old French · derived fromhadot
  2. Anglo-Norman · derived fromhadoc
  3. Middle English · inherited fromhaddok
  4. English todayhaddock

From Middle English haddok. Compare Anglo-Norman hadoc from Old French hadot, probably from an English source. Further origin uncertain, but hadot could have evolved from (h)adoux, (h)adoz, from adoub, from adouber, adober (“to prepare”), cognate with Italian addobbare (“to souse fish or meat”). The spelling is usually regarded as a diminutive in -ok (see -ock).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.