penguin – English noun declension

English noun forms of penguin

Noun: penguin
Singularpenguin
Pluralpenguins

Sample Sentences

  • 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 […] [1638, Thomas Herbert, Some Yeares Travels, section I:]
  • 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. [1772 March, “Account of the Settlement of the Malouines”, in The Gentleman's and London Magazine, page 166:]
  • 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." [1885, Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York:]
  • Jake (John Belushi): What are we doing here?
  • Elwood (Dan Aykroyd): You promised you'd visit the penguin the day you got out.
  • Jake: Yeah. So, I lied to her.
  • Elwood:You can't lie to a nun. We gotta go in and visit the penguin. [1980, Dan Aykroyd, The Blues Brothers (motion picture):]
  • Although it is a permanent R.A.F. station (pre-war, that is), we meander about, even in the Mess, in battle dress and flying boots, sweaters, etc., much to the disgust of some of the more dignified 'penguins' […] [1942, Hermann Hagedorn, Sunward I've Climbed, page 143:]
  • Notwithstanding his elevated status as the wing’s Senior Intelligence Officer, Monty, too, was a “penguin,” equal in that respect to an armament assistant, airframe mechanic, pigeon loftsman or any of the seventy-odd ground trades listed by the Royal Canadian Air Force at the war’s end. [1994, Monty Berger, Invasions without tears: the story of Canada's top-scoring Spitfire wing in Europe during the Second World War, →ISBN, →LCCN, page xi:]
  • She may have been a “penguin”—an Air Force service member who didn't fly—but it sure beat being at home, as Brady had pointed out. [2015 June 1, Kate Christie, In the Company of Women, Bella Books, →ISBN, →OCLC:]
  • This was to be my home for three months where ground officer cadets, referred to colloquially as ‘penguins’ were trained. [2019 November 5, Derek Esp, An Adventure in Education: The Autobiography of an Accidental Career in Education, Troubador Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 46:]

Etymology

1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-Celtic *kʷennom
3. Proto-Brythonic *penn
4. Welsh pen?
5. Proto-Indo-European *weyd-der.?
6. Proto-Celtic *windos
7. Proto-Brythonic *gwɨnn
8. Welsh gwyn?
9. Proto-Indo-European *peyh₂-der.
10. Proto-Indo-European *bʰenǵʰ-influ.?
11. Latin pinguisder.?
12. English penguin
13. Uncertain. First attested in the 16th century in reference to the auk of the Northern hemisphere; the word was later applied to the superficially similar birds of the Southern hemisphere (as was woggin). Possibly from Welsh pen (“head”) and gwyn (“white”), or from Latin pinguis (“fat”). See citations and the Wikipedia article.
14. Sense 3 originates from the often black-and-white habit worn by nuns, which resemble the bird's colors. See: Latin Nouns 'pinguis'.

Verbs referencing "penguin"

Russian Nouns пингвин, Hungarian Nouns pingvin, Norwegian Bokmål Nouns pingvin, Norwegian Nynorsk Nouns pingvin, Finnish Nouns pingviini, Dutch Nouns pinguïn, German Nouns Pinguin, Portuguese Nouns pinguim, Polish Nouns pingwin, Romanian Nouns pinguin, Catalan Nouns pingüí.