Chapter AGUN-BOAT to ALBATROSS of A by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

at the mouth of the Arakan R., which was much frequented by the Portuguese and the Chittagong people in the 16th and 17th centuries, and thus probably became known to them by a name taken from the Pagoda.— (From a note by Sir Arthur Phayre.) [Col. Temple writes—“The only derivation which strikes me as plausible, is from the Agyattaw Phaya, near which, on the island of Sittwé, a Cantonment was formed after the first Burmese war, on the abandonment of Mrohaung or Arakan town in 1825, on account of sickness among the troops stationed there. The word Agyattaw is spelt Akhyap-taw, whence probably the modern name.”]

[1826.—“It (the despatch) at length arrived this day (3rd Dec. 1826), having taken two months in all to reach us, of which forty-five days were spent in the route from Akyab in Aracan.”—Crawfurd, Ava, 289.]

ALA-BLAZE PAN, s. This name is given in the Bombay Presidency to a tinned-copper stew-pan, having a cover, and staples for straps, which is carried on the march by European soldiers, for the purpose of cooking in, and eating out of. Out on picnics a larger kind is frequently used, and kept continually going, as a kind of pot-au-feu. [It has been suggested that the word may be a corr. of some French or Port. term—Fr. braiser; Port. brazeiro, ‘a fire-pan,’ braza, ‘hot coals.’]

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. albakur, ‘praecox’ (Dozy), Heb. bikkura, 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. oacoro, ‘a young pig.’ Also see Gray’s note on Pyrard, i. 9.]

1579.—‘These (flying fish) have two enemies, the one in the sea, the other in the aire. In the sea the fish which is called Albecore, as big as a salmon.”—Letter from Goa, by T. Stevens, in Hakl. ii. 583.

1592.—“In our passage over from S. Laurence to the maine, we had exceeding great store of Bonitos and Albocores.”—Barker, in Hakl. ii. 592.

1696.—“We met likewise with shoals of Albicores (so call’d from a piece of white Flesh that sticks to their Heart) and with multitudes of Bonettoes, which are named from their Goodness and Excellence for eating; so that sometimes for more than twenty Days the whole Ship’s Company have feasted on these curious fish.”—Ovington, p. 48.

c. 1760.—“The Albacore is another fish of much the same kind as the Bonito .. from 60 to 90 pounds weight and upward. The name of this fish too is taken from the Portuguese, importing its white colour.” —Grose, i. 5.

ALBATROSS, s. The great sea-bird (Diomedea exulans, L.), from the Port. alcatraz, to which the forms used by Hawkins and Dampier, and by Flacourt (according to Marcel Devic) closely approach. [Alcatras ‘in this sense altered to albi-, albe-, albatross (perhaps with etymological reference to albus, “white,” the albatross being white, while the alcatras was black.’) N.E.D. s.v.] The Port. word properly means ‘a pelican.’ A reference to the latter word in our Glossary will show another curious misapplication. Devic states that alcatruz in Port. means ‘the bucket of a Persian wheel,’¹ representing the Ar. al-kadus, which is again from kados. He supposes that the pelican may have got this name in the same way that it is called in ordinary Ar. sakka, ‘a water-carrier.’ It has been pointed out by Dr Murray, that the alcatruz of some of the earlier voyagers, e.g., of Davis below, is not the Diomedea, but the Man-of-War (or Frigate) Bird (Fregatus aquilus). Hawkins, at p. 187 of the work quoted, describes, without naming, a bird which is evidently the modern albatross. In the quotation from Mocquet again, alcatruz is applied to some smaller sea-bird. The passage from Shelvocke is that which suggested to Coleridge “The Ancient Mariner.”

1564.—“The 8th December we ankered by a small Island called Alcatrarsa, wherein at our going a shoare, we found nothing but sea-birds, as we call them Ganets, but by the Portugals called Alcatrarses, who for that cause gave the said Island the same name.”—Hawkins (Hak. Soc.), 15.

1593.—“The dolphins and bonitoes are the houndes, and the alcatrarces the hawkes, and the flying fishes the game.” —Ibid.