puffin
noun/ˈpʌfɪn/
Etymology From Middle English poffin, poffoun, puffon, equivalent to puff + -ing, or perhaps ultimately from Middle Cornish (compare Breton poc'han (“puffin”)).
1
Obsolete The young of the Manx shearwater (Puffinus puffinus), especially eaten as food.
2
The Atlantic puffin (Fratercula arctica) or (by extension) any of the other various small seabirds of the genera Fratercula and Lunda that are black and white with a brightly-coloured beak.
- Naturally the Chickies and the Gooverooskies and the Epatkas—the Burgomaster Gulls and the Kittiwakes and the Puffins, who are always looking for a chance to be rude—took up the cry, and—so Limmershin told me—for nearly five minutes you could not have heard a gun fired on Walrus Islet.1894 May, Rudyard Kipling, “The White Seal”, in The Jungle Book, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published June 1894, →OCLC, page 110:
3
Biology, Entomology, Natural sciences Any of various African and Asian pierid butterflies of the genus Appias. Some species of this genus are also known as albatrosses.
4
Obsolete A puffball.
- Derived terms
- Atlantic puffin, common puffin, crested puffin, horned puffin, puffin crossing, puffinet, puffinry, puffling, tufted puffin
- Related terms
- fraterculine