cod
noun
any of several soft-rayed food fishes of the family Gadidae, especially Gadus morhua, of North Atlantic waters.
cod
1 American
[kod]
/ kɒd /
noun
-
cod,
plural
-
cods
plural
-
any of several soft-rayed food fishes of the family Gadidae, especially Gadus morhua, of North Atlantic waters.
-
a closely related fish, Gadus macrocephalus, of the North Pacific Ocean.
-
any of several unrelated fishes, as rockfishes of the genus Sebastes.
cod
2
American
[kod]
/ kɒd /
noun
COD.
3
American
Or
cod.
abbreviation
C.O.D.
4
American
Or
c.o.d.
abbreviation
Commerce.
cod
1
British
/ kɒd /
noun
-
any of the gadoid food fishes of the genus Gadus, esp G. morhua (or G. callarias ), which occurs in the North Atlantic and has a long body with three rounded dorsal fins: family Gadidae . They are also a source of cod-liver oil
-
any other fish of the family Gadidae See gadid
-
any of various unrelated Australian fish, such as the Murray cod
COD
2
British
abbreviation
-
cash on delivery
-
(in the US) collect on delivery
cod
3
British
/ kɒd /
noun
-
dialect a pod or husk
-
an obsolete word for scrotum
-
obsolete a bag or envelope
cod
4
British
/ kɒd /
verb
-
slang to make fun of; tease
-
slang to play a trick on; fool
noun
-
slang a hoax or trick
-
slang a fraud; hoaxer
he's an old cod
adjective
cod
5
British
/ kɒd /
noun
Cod
6
British
noun
COD
Cultural
Usage
What does C. O. D. mean? C. O. D. is an abbreviation for cash on delivery, referring to an arrangement in which payment for a purchase is made directly by the purchaser to the person who delivers the item. C. O. D. can also stand for collect on delivery, meaning the same thing. That’s because C. O. D. doesn’t necessarily always mean that actual cash (paper money) is required (though it often used to mean this). Sometimes, a check, money order, or credit card payment will be accepted as C. O. D. C. O. D. can be used as a noun, as in Sorry, we don’t accept C. O. D.s. It can also be used as an adverb, as in We’re shipping it C. O. D.; as an adjective, as in Our C. O. D. orders are behind schedule; and in other variations. Although the term can be spelled without periods, they’re usually included to make it clear that the term is an abbreviation. Example: Most of our shipments are done C. O. D., and we have a high percentage of successful payments.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of cod1
First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English; origin uncertain
Origin of cod2
First recorded before 1000; Middle English; Old English codd; akin to Old Norse koddi “pillow”
Origin of C.O.D.4
An Americanism dating back to 1855–60
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“We can act very quickly because we are small,” said Ragnar Thor Gunnarsson, CEO of cod liver company Akraborg, which is owned by Lysi.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
Baseball-sized salt cod fritters arrive golden and hot.
From Salon ● Aug. 11, 2026
Cool-adapted species such as cod are generally moving further north, while numbers of some warm-water species such as octopus have risen around south-west England.
From BBC ● Jul. 7, 2026
There is something about cold rice and then this slightly seared, slightly burned black cod.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 19, 2026
Each schooner carried a bunch of wooden dories stacked on deck, and when they got to the fishing grounds the men got into the dories and rowed away, looking for cod and haddock.
From "The Young Man and the Sea" by Rodman Philbrick
“For graduation, she sent me a suit of clothes C.O.D. - cash on delivery,” he said.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 23, 2017
“For graduation, she sent me a suit of clothes C.O.D. — cash on delivery,” he said.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 22, 2017
Customers called in orders, and he delivered C.O.D.
From New York Times ● Apr. 15, 2011
All blanks must be picked up at Reef Headquarters in San Diego, and the terms are C.O.D.
From Time Magazine Archive
“We’ve got cedars from Lebanon due at the sawmill in Oslo to be turned into shingles for the builder in Cape Cod. C.O.D. And then there’s the peas.”
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
In the lawsuit, Activision says it has “been able to identify and ban hundreds of thousands of accounts using cheating software in the COD Games in just over the past year.”
From The Verge ● Jan. 4, 2022
Back home in Ormond Beach, we play a lot of COD, a great team game.
From Golf Digest ● Jun. 25, 2019
Usually when you first sign up with Diamond, you write a COD check or whatever to get your comics delivered to your store.
From Slate ● Nov. 2, 2017
Of course, the staple of COD are robust multiplayer matches.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 5, 2015
We saw the COD as a means whereby our views could be put directly to the white public.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
The complaint, filed in April in Miami-Dade County, alleged the incident occurred at Peters’ parents’ home in Cape Cod.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
"It's sad to see, I'm upset but as Cod is my witness, I'm planning something bigger and batter," he joked.
From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2026
Half a century after the last "Cod Wars" with Britain, many Icelanders are reluctant to yield even the tiniest bit of control of their hard-won national waters to Brussels.
From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026
Characters played by Banderas and Leo Woodall are composites of figures Bourdain knew during his time in Cape Cod.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026
“Ronan. You do know you’re on Cape Cod, right? And...”
From "Shouting at the Rain" by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
"They'll order two cods and one chips to share, I think that's their way of trying to save their money."
From BBC ● May 13, 2026
In May 2014 a study highlighted an example of innovative tool use by Atlantic cods being held in captivity for aquaculture research.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 8, 2017
These clever cods honed their technique through hundreds of “tests”—and it became a finely tuned series of goal-directed, coordinated movements.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 8, 2017
Apparently some of the cods discovered they could activate the feeder by hooking the loop onto their tag and swimming a short distance away.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 8, 2017
You may do radish cods or brown buds the same way.
From English Housewifery Exemplified in above Four Hundred and Fifty Receipts Giving Directions for most Parts of Cookery by Elizabeth Moxon
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
