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Glite Dictionary
Donald Duck

Donald Duck

9 1.2
A cartoon duck who gets angry easily and wears a sailor suit
  • proper noun
: Pato Donald
  • In the theme park, kids lined up to meet Donald Duck for photos and autographs.
  • Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck

I look, we, we, we got to get rid of this, this Donald Duck guy.

Examples

  • Many children enjoy watching cartoons featuring Donald Duck and his amusing adventures.

  • Unfortunately, Donald Duck is still running around with his cloaca out, just waving in the wind.

  • Somewhere along the line, when I was 8 or so, The Miracle of Life book got mixed in with my Donald Duck comics, and I read it and learned about baby development.

    Blog text (15)

  • Anyone who follows tasteless internet memes will get the reference, but for those who do not, "Dolan" is this horribly deformed-looking knock-off of Donald Duck.

    Blog text (15)

  • Every Sunday, my favorite comic strip included stories about Donald Duck and his antics.

Surface Forms

Donald Duck main

Morphology

Donald + Duck

A B1 learner who knows 'Donald' is a personal name and 'duck' is an animal can reasonably infer this refers to an individual or character that is a duck called Donald, so part of the meaning is derivable. However, the full encyclopedic sense (a famous Disney cartoon character, anthropomorphic, short-tempered, dressed in a sailor suit) is cultural and not predictable from the constituents alone, so it is not fully transparent.

Etymology

Donald Duck was created by Walt Disney in the 1930s as a talking, short duck in a little sailor suit with a loud, quacking voice and a habit of 'getting angry easily'. That's why the name brings to mind that famous Disney cartoon character today.