Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of several seabirds of the genus Fratercula of northern regions, characteristically having black-and-white plumage and a vertically flattened, triangular bill that is brightly colored during breeding season.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A name wrongly applied to the Manx shearwater, Puffinus anglorum.
- noun A sea-parrot, colter-neb, or bottle-nosed auk; a bird of the family Alcidæ and genus Fratercula or Lunda. See these words.
- noun A kind of fungus; a fuzzball; a puffball.
- noun of the
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) An arctic sea bird
Fratercula arctica ) allied to the auks, and having a short, thick, swollen beak, whence the name; -- called alsobottle nose ,cockandy ,coulterneb ,marrot ,mormon ,pope , andsea parrot . - noun the Manx shearwater. See under
Manx . - noun (Bot.) The puffball.
- noun obsolete A sort of apple.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun any of two genera of northern seabirds having short necks and brightly colored compressed bills
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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(Plush animals, among which the puffin is the cutest, come with a $50 donation and up.)
'Adopt' Your Favorite Animal On Facebook Siel Ju 2010
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That's why the cost of adopting a cute little puffin is the same as adopting larger, perhaps less cute, animals.
'Adopt' Your Favorite Animal On Facebook Siel Ju 2010
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At its most bad ass, “Puffin” brings cheesepuffs to mind yes, I know a puffin is a bird.
2010: All the Future is Cracked Up to Be? - Pink Raygun.com 2010
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Given the frequent Arctic references it the article should be referred to as a puffin piece.
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Once I smelled new-mown hay when we were quite a long way from land, and once when I was watching the sea-parrots as the sailors call the puffin I noticed they had different ways of tucking their heads under their wings, or I fancied it, and said to the captain, ‘They have different characters’.
Collected Works of W. B. Yeats Volume III Autobiographies W.B. Yeats 1965
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Once I smelled new-mown hay when we were quite a long way from land, and once when I was watching the sea-parrots as the sailors call the puffin I noticed they had different ways of tucking their heads under their wings, or I fancied it, and said to the captain, ‘They have different characters’.
Collected Works of W. B. Yeats Volume III Autobiographies W.B. Yeats 1965
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Once I smelled new-mown hay when we were quite a long way from land, and once when I was watching the sea-parrots as the sailors call the puffin I noticed they had different ways of tucking their heads under their wings, or I fancied it, and said to the captain, ‘They have different characters’.
Collected Works of W. B. Yeats Volume III Autobiographies W.B. Yeats 1965
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Once I smelled new-mown hay when we were quite a long way from land, and once when I was watching the sea-parrots as the sailors call the puffin I noticed they had different ways of tucking their heads under their wings, or I fancied it, and said to the captain, ‘They have different characters’.
Collected Works of W. B. Yeats Volume III Autobiographies W.B. Yeats 1965
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Once I smelled new-mown hay when we were quite a long way from land, and once when I was watching the sea-parrots as the sailors call the puffin I noticed they had different ways of tucking their heads under their wings, or I fancied it, and said to the captain, ‘They have different characters’.
Autobiographies W.B. Yeats 1965
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Once I smelled new-mown hay when we were quite a long way from land, and once when I was watching the sea-parrots as the sailors call the puffin I noticed they had different ways of tucking their heads under their wings, or I fancied it, and said to the captain, ‘They have different characters’.
Autobiographies W.B. Yeats 1965
hernesheir commented on the word puffin
Scots, variously: coulter-neb; bowger (Hebrides); cockandy (Firth of Forth); taminorie, tommy-noddy (Orkney); and tom-noddy, tom-norry, tummy-norrie.
May 10, 2011