| 释义 |
▪ I. puffin1|ˈpʌfɪn|
Forms: 4 poffoun, -in, (5 pophyn), 6 puffing, 4–7 puffyn, 7–8 puffen, 6– puffin.
[ME. poffin, pophyn; in latinized form, pl. poffones; also puffyn. Origin unascertained: see Note below.]
1. a. A sea-bird of the genus Fratercula, of the family Alcidæ or Auks; esp. the common F. arctica, found abundantly on the coasts of the N. Atlantic, having a very large curiously-shaped furrowed and particoloured bill.
Formerly erroneously supposed by some to be wingless, and by others reckoned as a fish, its flesh having a fishy taste and being allowed to be eaten in Lent.
1337Caption of Seisin (of Scilly) 5 May (Duchy of Cornwall), Ran[ulphus] de Albo Monastrio tenet Insulam de Sully et r[eddit] inde ad idem f[estu]m Di[midium] marce vel ccc poffouns. 1366Ministers' Acc. Bundle 823 No. 22 (P.R.O.), Idem respondet de vs de poffon' hoc anno. 1367Ibid., Exitus chacee cuniculorum et Poffonum. a1490Botoner Itin. (1778) 98 Insula Rascow..inculta cum cuniculis et avibus vocatis pophyns. 1502Acc. Ld. High. Treas. Scot. II. 155 Item..to ane man of the laird of Cesnokkis that brocht puffingis to the King, xxviijs. a1529Skelton Ph. Sparowe 454 The puffin and the tele Money they shall dele To poore folke at large. 1530Palsgr. 259/1 Puffyn a fysshe lyke a teele. a1552Leland Itin. VI. 65 Puffins, Birdes less then Dukkes having grey Fethers like Dukkes. 1602Carew Cornwall 35 b, The Puffyn..whose young ones are thence ferretted out, being exceeding fat, kept salted, and reputed for fish, as comming neerest thereto in their taste. 1655Moufet & Bennet Health's Impr. xviii. 166 Puffins, whom I may call the feathered fishes, are accounted even by the holy fatherhood of Cardinals to be no flesh but rather fish. 1678Phillips (ed. 4), Puffin, a sort of Coot or Seagull, supposed to be so called from its round belly; as it were swelling and puffing out. 1736Sheridan Let. to Swift 12 May in Swift's Corr. (1768) IV. 159, I have twenty lambs..as plump as puffins. 1865Gosse Land & Sea (1874) 30 Known by the fishermen as sea parrots or coulternebs; but more generally designated in books as puffins.
b. Erroneously applied to a species of Shearwater (Puffinus anglorum, family Procellariidæ), found in the Isle of Man and the Scilly Islands.
1674Ray Collect. Words, Water Fowl 94 The Puffin or Curviere: Puffinus Anglorum. This bird builds on a little Island called the calf of Man at the South End of the Isle of Man and also upon the Silly Islands, but is nothing such a thing as is described in Aldrovandus: for that is feather'd and can fly swiftly. 1678― Willughby's Ornith. 333 The Puffin of the Isle of Man, which I take to be the Puffinus Anglorum. 1688R. Holme Armoury ii. 298/2 The Puffin of the Isle of Man, or the Mancks Puffin..is something less in body than a Tame Pigeon. 1884Yarrell's Brit. Birds IV. 21 The Manx Shearwater is the commonest species of the genus in the British seas... It owes its trivial name to Willughby, who speaks of it as the Puffin of the Isle of Man.
c. Applied locally in Ireland to the Razor-bill.
1885Swainson Prov. Names Birds 217 Razor bill (Alca torda)... Puffin (Antrim).
d. attrib. and Comb., as puffin-cock, puffin-hole; puffin-auk = sense a.
1796C. Smith Marchmont II. 199 The cries of the sand-piper, the puffin-awk; the screaming gull. 1901Wide World Mag. VIII. 133/1 Absorbed in the pastime of probing puffin-holes in search of eggs. 1902N. Howard Kiartan ii. 32 Nay, they shall fight like puffin-cocks.
2. (With capital initial.) The proprietary name of a variety of children's paper-back book or series of books published by Longman Group Limited (see penguin 2 c).
1947Trade Marks Jrnl. 10 Sept. 535/2 Puffin 648,226. Printed publications, stationery, bookbinding materials, pens and pencils, but not including publications on puffins. Penguin Books Limited..Manufacturers and Publishers.—28th May, 1946. 1960Penguins Progress 1935–60 54 Each month we publish fifteen to twenty books, varying from Penguin fiction..to Penguin Handbooks and Puffins. 1979Guardian 29 Oct. 12/6 A list of leading children's writers who are not in Puffin would be a pretty short one.
3. (With capital initial.) The proprietary name of a make of duvet or continental quilt. Also Puffin Downlet.
1959Trade Marks Jrnl. 18 Feb. 206/2 Puffin... Filled bed coverings in the nature of quilts or eiderdowns. Arthur R. Davis and Company Limited,..Croydon, Surrey; manufacturers and merchants. 1970‘R. Crawford’ Kiss Boss Goodbye ii. viii. 107 Brenda was lying on her back on top of the Puffin Downlet. 1971Guardian 29 Sept. 11/2 The cleaning of feather-filled continental quilts is a problem... One reader, taking her Puffin to..a well-known cleaners..was met with the blankest confusion. [Note. Suggestions as to the origin of the name puffin have mostly supposed some connexion with the verb or n. puff or the adj. puffy. Thus it has been conjectured to refer to the ‘puffy’ or corpulent appearance of the bird (quot. 1678), or esp. to the plumpness of the young, formerly considered a delicacy (cf. the simile ‘as plump as a puffin’); also to the soft downy clothing of the young (Prof. A. Newton). Others have sought an explanation in the remarkable ‘puffed-out’ beak, or in a puffing sound uttered by the bird or its young when seized. Caius (1570) expressly declares that the name is derived ‘a naturali voce pupin’. But, as the ME. forms of the name are spelt poff-, and the earliest known association of the bird under this name was with Cornwall and Scilly, it is evident that these conjectures rest on insecure bases. The name may even have come from Cornwall, and its change to ‘puff-’ may be due to ‘popular etymology’ in English. The erroneous sense b, is due to Ray, who mistook young specimens of the shearwater from the Isle of Man for puffins, and applied to them the name Puffinus anglorum (applied by Gesner to the real puffin), which has unhappily been retained in ornithological nomenclature.] ▪ II. † ˈpuffin2 Obs.
[app. f. puff v. or n.: in sense 1, perh. with some notion of connexion with prec., which by 1600 was prob. popularly associated with puffing. The other senses appear to be more or less distinct formations from puff.]
1. Applied in contempt or reproach to a person puffed up with vanity or pride.
1610B. Jonson Alch. iii. iv, What shall we doe with this same Puffin [Dapper] here Now hee's o' the spit? 1631R. Brathwait Whimzies, Neuter 67 What will this puffin come to in time? 1661Sir H. Vane's Politics 7 Before..that swoln Puffin rose to that growth and immense grandure.
2. Some kind of fish, also called fork-fish: see fork n. 16. Also puffin-fish.
1598Florio, Bastango,..a forke-fish, it is like a ray; some call it a puffin-fish. 1601Holland Pliny I. 261 The Puffen or Fork-fish..lieth in await..ready to strike the fishes that passe by with a sharpe rod or pricke that he hath. 1617Minsheu Ductor, A Puffen, or Forke-fish... Est enim furcatâ caudâ et aculeatâ, vt sagitta.
3. Name of a variety of apple: = puff n. 3 b. Also puffin-apple.
1589Rider Bibl. Schol. 47 A Puffin, otherwise called an 100. shillings, Malum pulmoneum. 1736Ainsworth Lat. Dict., A puffin apple, Malum pulmonium. 1755in Johnson.
4. = puff-ball 1. rare—0. (? error.)
1755Johnson, Puffin... 3. A kind of fungus filled with dust.
5. pl. ? Some inferior kind of meal or flour: see quot.
1587J. Hooker Descr. Exeter in Holinshed Chron. III. 1022/1 In this extremitie the bakers and housholders were driuen to seeke vp their old store of puffins and bran, wherewith they in times past were woont to make horssebread. |
