Etymology

pufferfish

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Today it means: Any species of fish of the family Tetraodontidae that have the ability to inflate themselves to a globe several times their normal size by swallowing water or air when threatened; puffer, blowfish, swellfish, balloonfish, globefish. Full definition →

English fish ← Middle English fisch ← Old English fisċ
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The story

  1. Englishpuff
  2. Englishpuffer
  3. Proto-Indo-European*péysks
  4. Proto-Germanic*fiskaz
  5. Proto-West Germanic*fisk
  6. Old Englishfisċ
  7. Middle Englishfisch
  8. Englishfish
  9. English todaypufferfish

From puffer + fish.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.