penguin
Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ˈpɛŋɡwɪn/
  • (pin-pen) IPA: /ˈpɪŋɡwɪn/
Noun

penguin (plural penguins)

  1. Any of several flightless sea birds, of order Sphenisciformes, found in the Southern Hemisphere, marked by their usual upright stance, walking on short legs, and (generally) their stark black and white plumage. [from 16th c.]
    • 1638, Thomas Herbert, Some Yeares Travels, I:
      Here are also birds cal'd Pen-gwins (white-head in Welch) like Pigmies walking upright, their finns or wings hanging very orderly downe like sleeves […]
  2. (obsolete or historical) An auk (sometimes especially a great auk), a bird of the Northern Hemisphere.
    • 1772 March, Account of the Settlement of the Malouines, in The Gentleman's and London Magazine, page 166:
      • This last species of penguin, or auk, seems to be the same with the alca cirrhata of Dr. Pallis, Spicileg. Zool. Fasc. v. p. 7. tab. i. & v. fig. 1–3. F.
    • 1885, Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York:
      More than a hundred years ago, for example, was seen the last of the great wingless penguins or auks, which early writers quaintly called " wobble-birds."
  3. (slang) A nun (association through appearance, because of the black and white habit).
  4. (juggling) A type of catch where the palm of the hand is facing towards the leg with the arm stretched downward, resembling the flipper of a penguin.
  5. A spiny bromeliad with egg-shaped fleshy fruit, Bromelia pinguin.
    • 1803, Robert Charles Dallas, The History of the Maroons, London: Longman and Rees, Volume 1, Letter 4, p. 82,
      These productive patches, and the houses, were each surrounded by a fence, made of a prickly shrub, called the Pinguin, which propagates itself with great rapidity.
Translations


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