muffin

Pluralmuffins

Formsmuffins, muffining, muffined

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A cupcake-shaped baked good, sometimes glazed but usually without frosting, eaten especially for breakfast rather than as a dessert.

   He warmed a banana muffin and ate it with his coffee.

   These muffins are lightly glazed but have no frosting at all.

2. 2
   nounBritishcountable

   A flattish bread bun that people usually split horizontally and toast, then butter or top with something else before eating.

   He split the muffin in two and toasted both halves over the fire.

   The cafe served warm muffins dripping with melted butter.

   Note

   Where the word's English history begins: earlier moofin, probably a diminutive of Low German Muffe, "small cake." Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813) supplies a guest with "coffee and muffin," treating the bun as a mass noun, the way we still say toast. Thomas Hardy's lips that "met like the two halves of a muffin" assume the split. Its other name, English muffin, keeps it apart from the cupcake-shaped breakfast cake.

3. 3
   nouncolloquialendearingcountable

   An affectionate name used for a person one loves or cares about.

   Don't worry, muffin, everything is going to be just fine.

   She embarrassed her boyfriend by calling him muffin in front of his friends.

   Similarbabe, baby, darling, dear, cutie

4. 4
   nounslangvulgarcountable

   Vulgar slang for the vulva or vagina, or the pubic hair around them.

   She slapped him after he grabbed at her muffin.

   The lyrics referred crudely to women's muffins throughout the song.

   Similarmuff, beaver, bush, box, fanny

   Note

   The bakery meanings make this one a ready double entendre, and most of its uses trade on that. Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper's "Stuffin' Martha's Muffin" (1986) does it, and so does the line "Is your muffin buttered?" in Tina Fey's Mean Girls (2004). The sense was shaped by muff. Because it is vulgar, an innocent muffin can be heard this way in the wrong company, so it has no place in polite or formal talk.

5. 5
   noundialectalNorthern EnglandUKcountable

   Any bread roll, such as a bap or cob, whether flat or not and whether toasted or not.

   He ordered a chip muffin from the chippy down the road.

   The bakery's muffins were really just soft bread rolls.

   Similarroll, bap, cob, bun

   Note

   In Manchester and the north of England, the word stretches to cover the everyday bread roll, the thing other speakers call a bap or a cob. Unlike the split, toasted British bun, it need not be flat or toasted at all. It is a dialect word: ask for a muffin there and you may simply get a roll.

6. 6
   nounslangcountable

   In sports, a player of little skill, especially one prone to fumbling or dropping the ball.

   The coach benched the muffin who kept dropping easy catches.

   Every team has a few muffins who never seem to improve.

   Similarduffer, butterfingers, bungler

   Note

   Baseball slang built on a pun: the player who muffs, or drops the ball, becomes a muffin. It is a dugout put-down for someone who fumbles easy plays, not a neutral term for a weak player. Keep it apart from the hockey muffin, which names a feeble shot rather than the person who made it.

7. 7
   nounslangcountable

   In ice hockey, a feeble shot on which the puck moves only slowly.

   The defenseman's muffin trickled harmlessly toward the goalie.

   Soft muffins like that rarely trouble a good netminder.

   Note

   Rink slang for the shot that barely threatens: the puck slides toward the net with so little pace that the goaltender has time to watch it come. The word judges the shot, not the shooter, so a good player can still put one on net on a bad night. It belongs to casual hockey talk, not formal commentary.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   A charming and attractive young man.

   He was the kind of muffin who turned heads at every party.

   The bar was full of well-dressed muffins that evening.

   Similarhunk, dreamboat, heartthrob

9. 9
   verbintransitive

   To grow in size and become rounded, like a muffin.

   The top of the loaf will muffin if the pan is too small.

   Flesh tends to muffin over the top of tight jeans.

   Similarbulge, swell, balloon, dome

   Note

   In use, this is a body word more than a baking one. It describes flesh swelling against whatever confines it: a waistband, a shirt collar, even body armor. It almost always takes a particle (muffined up, over or out), followed by the thing being pressed against, as in over her shorts or out over the collar. The image comes from the cupcake-shaped muffin, and the tone is frank and sometimes teasing.

10. 10
    verbintransitive

    To eat muffins, especially as a snack or a light meal.

    The friends muffined together every weekend without fail.

    He would muffin all morning if you let him.

    Note

    A playful verb that turns up most often in two shapes. Benjamin Disraeli, writing in 1837, "tead and muffined at 8," pairing it with a verbed tea. Later writers use muffined out to mean having had more muffins than one can face ("Have you muffined out, had more than your share of croissants?"). It is a jokey, informal coinage rather than a neutral word for eating.

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