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penguin
The definition of a penguin is a bird that lives in the southern hemisphere, cannot fly and has flippers and webbed feet.
(noun)An example of a penguin is a bird that waddles across the ice.
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See penguin in Webster's New World College Dictionary
noun
- great auk
- any of an order (Sphenisciformes) of flightless birds found in the Southern Hemisphere, having webbed feet and paddlelike flippers for swimming and diving
Origin: prob. < Welsh pen gwyn, lit., white head (or Bret pen gouin): ? in reference to a white headland on a N Atlantic island, near which they were found
See penguin in American Heritage Dictionary 4
noun
- Any of various stout flightless marine birds of the family Spheniscidae, of cool regions of the Southern Hemisphere, having flipperlike wings and webbed feet adapted for swimming and diving, and short scalelike feathers that are white in front and black on the back.
- Obsolete The great auk.
Origin:
Origin: Possibly from Welsh pen gwyn, White Head (name of an island in Newfoundland), great auk
Origin: : pen, chief, head
Origin: + gwynn, white; see weid- in Indo-European roots
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