Etymology

puffin

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Today it means: The young of the Manx shearwater (Puffinus puffinus), especially eaten as food. Full definition →

First used 14th–19th c.Middle English poffin
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The story

  1. Middle English · inherited frompoffin
  2. English todaypuffin

From Middle English poffin, poffoun, puffon, equivalent to puff + -ing, or perhaps ultimately from Middle Cornish (compare Breton poc'han (“puffin”)).

First known use, by meaning

  • 14th–19th c. The young of the Manx shearwater (Puffinus puffinus), especially eaten as food.
  • from 17th c. 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.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.