puffin

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of several sea birds of the genera Fratercula and Lunda of northern regions, characteristically having black and white plumage and a vertically flattened, triangular bill that is brightly colored during breeding season.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A sea-parrot, colter-neb, or bottle-nosed auk; a bird of the family Alcidæ and genus Fratercula or Lunda. See these words. There are several species. The common puffin is F. aretica, which abounds on both coasts of the North Atlantic, nesting in holes in the ground. It is about 12 inches long, of a blackish color above, white below, with a black collar and gray face; the bill is very curious—bright-red, blue, and yellow, extremely high, narrow, and furrowed; the feet are small, placed far back, red; the eyelids are carunculate; the wings and tail are short. The bird flies swiftly and dives well. The whole horny covering of the beak and the caruncles of the eyelids are regularly molted. F. glacialis and F. corniculata are closely related; the latter has the fleshy process of the eyelid elongated into a horn. Lunda cirrata is the tufted puffin, quite different, inhabiting the North Pacific, with a long tuft of yellow plumes on each side of the head, the coloration mostly blackish, with white face, and the beak peculiar in shape.
2. n. A kind of fungus; a fuzzball; a puffball.
3. n. of the
4. n. A name wrongly applied to the Manx shearwater, Puffinus anglorum.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Zoöl.) An arctic sea bird Fratercula arctica) allied to the auks, and having a short, thick, swollen beak, whence the name; -- called also bottle nose, cockandy, coulterneb, marrot, mormon, pope, and sea parrot.
2. n. (Bot.) The puffball.
3. n. obsolete A sort of apple.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. any of two genera of northern seabirds having short necks and brightly colored compressed bills