Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive c10.129

c10.129

**ALBACORE**, s. A kind of rather large sea-fish, of the Tunny genus (*Thynnus albacora*, Lowe, perhaps the same as *Thynnus macropterus*, Day); from the Port. *albacor* or *albecora*. The quotations from Ovington and Grose below refer it to *albo*, but the word is, from its form, almost certainly Arabic, though Dozy says he has not found the word in this sense in Arabic dictionaries, which are very defective in the names of fishes (p. 61). The word *albacora* in Sp. is applied to a large early kind of fig, from Ar. *al-bākūr*, ‘praecox’ (Dozy), Heb. *bikkūra*, in Micah vii. 1.—See *Cobarruvias*, s. v. *Albacora*. [The *N.E.D.* derives it from Ar. *al-bukr*, ‘a young camel, a heifer,’ whence Port. *bacoro*, ‘a young pig.’ Also see Gray’s note on *Pyrard*, i. 9.]