Dorado

Dorado, from Spanish dorado, a fish of the genus Coryphaena, is the name of the mahi-mahi or dolphin-fish. The constellation Dorado is referred as the Goldfish. The word dorado is past participle of dorar, from Latin deaurare, 'to gild', from de- and aurare, 'to gild', from aurum, 'gold'. Latin aurare comes from the Indo-European root *aus-². 'Gold'. Derivatives: aureate (golden color), aureole (a circle of light or radiance surrounding the head or body of a representation of a deity or holy person; a halo), auriferous (gold-bearing), dariole (a small cooking mold), dory² (John Dory seafish), or³ (gold, represented in heraldic engraving by a white field sprinkled with small dots), ore (mined mineral), oriflamme (the red or orange-red flag of the Abbey of Saint Denis in France, used as a standard by the early kings of France), oriole (a bird), ormolu (alloys resembling gold in appearance), oroide (an alloy of copper, zinc, and tin, used in imitation gold jewelry), orphrey (elaborate embroidery, especially when made of gold), orpiment (arsenic trisulfide, a yellow mineral used as a pigment. from Latin orum, gold). [Pokorny ayes- 86. Watkins]

The English word gold has the symbol Au, from Latin aurum.

The Mahi-mahi, Coryphaena hippurus, also known as dolphin-fish, dorado, or lampuki (in Maltese), are surface-dwelling ray-finned fish found in off-shore tropical and subtropical waters worldwide. The name 'mahi-mahi' ('strong-strong' in Hawaiian). When they are removed from the water, the fish often change between several colors (this being the reason for their name in Spanish Dorado Maverikos), finally fading to a muted yellow-grey upon death. [1] Dorado fish are also commonly known as maverikos; related to the English word maverick. The word maverick is an eponym, deriving from the name Samuel Augustus Maverick (1803-1870), an American cattleman who left the calves in his herd unbranded. In common usage a maverick is a rebellious person, especially a loner who opposes established rules.

“'Treasury' (thesaurus) is named after the Greek term thesis, 'positing,' that is, 'deposit.' Thus thesis means 'positing,' and the term has combined a Greek with a Latin word, for the element thes means 'deposit' in Greek, and Latin supplies aurum ('gold'), so that the word thesaurus sounds like the combination 'gold deposit.' An auraria (i.e. a kind of tax; also a gold mine) takes its name from gold (aurum).” [The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, 7th century AD, p.329.]

El Dorado or Eldorado (Spanish for 'the gilded one') is a metaphor applied to any place of fabulous wealth or inordinately great opportunity. El Dorado is a legendary city or historical region of the New World, somewhere in South America. El Dorado is a legend that began with the story of a South American tribal chief who covered himself with gold dust and would dive into a lake of pure mountain water. As the story was told and re-told, El Dorado came to be viewed as a city containing immense wealth, a legend that inspired many explorers from the 1500s on. According to Freyle, the king or chief priest of the Muisca was said to be ritually covered with gold dust at a religious festival held in Lake Guatavita, near present-day Bogotá... [2]. The story of El Dorado was embellished with accounts of his golden city, the mythical Manoa where even the cooking utensils were made of gold. Explorers and adventurers took off on the hunch that the city was located somewhere in the unexplored forests of the Amazon valley, and vanished into the jungle, scores never returning [3].

Read more about the city of El Dorado here

Speculation

The word 'dorado' and the word 'dory', both come from de- + Latin aurum, 'of gold'. The dory fish is called the 'John Dory'. John Dory, also known as St Pierre, St Peter's Fish, refers to fish of the genus Zeus, especially Zeus faber [4]. St Peter's fish refers to the 'thumbprint' on the side of the fish supposedly left by St Peter when he caught the fish. In its mouth was a gold coin to pay the temple tax collectors (Matthew xvii, 24-27) [5]. The fish itself is also flat and round like a coin.

"Various explanations are given of the origin of the name. It may be an arbitrary or jocular variation of dory (itself from the French dorée, gilded), or perhaps an allusion to John Dory, the hero of an old ballad. Others suggest that 'John' derives from the French jaune, yellow. The novel An Antarctic Mystery by Jules Verne gives another account, which has some popularity but is probably fanciful: "The legendary etymology of this piscatorial designation is Janitore, the 'door-keeper,' in allusion to St. Peter, who brought a fish said to be of that species, to our Lord at His command." (St. Peter is said to be keeper of the pearly gates of Heaven.) A related legend says that the dark spot on the fish's flank is St. Peter's thumbprint" [6].

"The dory is a favorite dish in Venice, where, as in all the Italian ports of the Mediterranean, it is called Janitore, or the gate-keeper, by which title St. Peter is most commonly designated among the Catholics, as being the reputed keeper of the keys of heaven. In this respect, the name tallies with the superstitious legend of this being the fish out of whose mouth the apostle took the tribute money" [7].

The Janitore, janitor, in mythology is Janus, the god of doors. The name Janus comes from ianua, ianus, doorway, related to Latin ire, to go. Latin ire is the suffix -ire of a number of Latin verbs. Latin ire comes from the Indo-European root *ei-  'To go'. Derivatives: adit ( ad- + ire), ambient (ambi- + ire), transit (transire ‘to go across’, from trans + ire ‘to go’), ion (an atom that has acquired a net electric charge by gaining or losing one or more electrons), ionosphere, initial ('to go into' from in- +  ire), initiate, initiation, (these words from Latin initium, entrance, beginning), itinerant, itinerary (from Latin iter, journey), janitor, January, Janus, Rio de Janeiro, Janice, Jan. [Pokorny 1. ei- 293. Watkins] One suggested origin of the name of the Italian city of Genoa is a derivation of Janus. Jeans, from 'Genoa,' from L. Genua, perhaps from janua 'gate'.

“The month of January (Ianuarius) is so called from Janus, to whom it was consecrated by the pagans, or because January is the threshold and doorway (ianua) of the year. Hence Janus is depicted as two-faced, to display the entrance and the exit of the year” [p.128]. “They call Janus (Ianus) the door (ianua), as it were, of the world or the sky or the months. They imagine two faces for Janus, standing for the east and the west” [p.185]. “A 'front door' (ianua) is named after a certain Janus, to whom the pagans dedicate any entrance or exit. Whence Lucan (Civil War 1.62): Let her (Peace) shut the iron doors of war-making Janus” [p.311]. [The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, 7th century AD]

As the sole ruler of Latium, Janus heralded the Golden Age, introducing money (coins), laws and agriculture [8]. Janus is two-faced, as doors and coins have two sides. "In the Saturnalia, Macrobius says that January is dedicated to Janus as December is dedicated to Saturn, and so Janus is the new god who reigns at the end of the Saturnalia" [9]. He was considered as the promoter of all initiative [10].

While he was musing Ovid asks the question

"But two-formed Janus what god shall I say you are, Since Greece has no divinity to compare with you? Tell me the reason, too, why you alone of all the gods look both at what’s behind you and what’s in front".

Then suddenly, sacred and marvelous, Janus, in two-headed form. Holding his stick in his right hand, his key in the left. He explains who he is. "The ancients called me Chaos (since I am of the first world): ... Whatever you see: sky, sea, clouds, earth, all things are begun and ended by my hand. Care of the vast world is in my hands alone, and mine the governance of the turning pole. I sit at Heaven’s Gate [adjacent Caelum is the celestial realm?] with the gentle Hours [adjacent Horologium]; Jupiter himself comes and goes at my discretion. So I’m called Janus. Yet you’d smile at the names the priest gives me, offering cake and meal sprinkled with salt: on his sacrificial lips I’m Patulcius. And then again I’m called Clusius. So with a change of name unsophisticated antiquity chose to signify my changing functions. ... Every doorway has two sides, this way and that, one facing the crowds, and the other the Lares: ...  I myself inhabited the ground on the left passed by sandy Tiber’s gentle waves. Here, where Rome is now, uncut forest thrived, and all this was pasture for scattered cattle. My citadel was the hill the people of this age call by my name, dubbing it the Janiculum. I reigned then, when earth could bear the gods, and divinities mingled in mortal places. Justice had not yet fled from human sin (she was the last deity to leave the earth, constellated in Virgo). Shame without force, instead of fear, ruled the people, and it was no effort to expound the law to the lawful. I’d nothing to do with war: I guarded peace and doorways, and this,’ he said, showing his key, ‘was my weapon.’[11] 

Gaulish doro, 'mouth,' Irish doras, door, resembles the word Dorado? English door comes from the Indo-European root *dhwer- 'Door'. Derivatives: door (Greek thura, Latin foris, Gaulish doro 'mouth,' Irish doras, door), thyroid, from Greek thur, door. The following words are related to Latin foras means outside the door (fores) from which we get the words: farouche (fierce, wild), foreign, forest, afforest, foreclose, forfeit, from Latin fors, (being) out of doors, forensic (used in debate or argument; rhetorical), forum (a designated space for public expression), from Latin forum, marketplace (originally the enclosed space around a home). [Pokorny dhwer- 278. Watkins]

The thyroid absorbs iodine from the blood for production of thyroid hormones. Twenty-five percent of all the body's iodide ions (from *ei-) are in the thyroid gland.

© Anne Wright 2008.