puffin
noun
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L326091 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈpʌfɪn/
noun
Etymology: From Middle English poffin, poffoun, puffon, equivalent to puff + -ing, or perhaps ultimately from Middle Cornish (compare Breton poc'han (“puffin”)).
- The young of the Manx shearwater (Puffinus puffinus), especially eaten as food.
- 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.”
- Any of various African and Asian pierid butterflies of the genus Appias. Some species of this genus are also known as albatrosses.
- A puffball.