# penguin

Pronunciation: say "PENG-gwin" /ˈpɛŋɡwɪn/

## Noun

1. A flightless sea bird of the Southern Hemisphere, marked by an upright stance, short legs for walking, and usually stark black and white plumage.
   - Simple: A flightless sea bird that swims well, stands upright, and has black and white feathers.
   - _Emperor penguins huddle together to survive the Antarctic winter._
   - _A lone penguin waddled toward the water's edge._
2. A woman belonging to a religious order; a nun. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A woman who has given her life to religion and lives as a nun.
   - _A pair of penguins from the convent visited the sick ward each morning._
   - _Sister Agnes was the strictest penguin in the whole convent school, with a ruler in one hand and a rosary in the other._

## Noun

3. A northern-hemisphere sea bird of the auk kind, sometimes specifically the great auk. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: A northern sea bird of the auk family, especially the great auk, now extinct.

## Other meanings

- (noun) A member of the air force who works on the ground rather than flying aircraft.
- (noun) A catch made with the arm held straight down at the side and the hand twisted so the palm faces upward and the fingers point outward, resembling a penguin's flipper.
- (noun) A spiny bromeliad bearing egg-shaped, fleshy fruit, known botanically as Bromelia pinguin.

## Origin

No one is certain where the word comes from. It is first recorded in the 16th century for the Northern Hemisphere auk and was later used for the Southern Hemisphere birds that look somewhat like it. One possibility is Welsh pen ("head") plus gwyn ("white"), and another is Latin pinguis ("fat").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/penguin (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).