muffin

muffin

See also: MUFFIN and Muffin

English

A muffin (sense 1, an English muffin).

A muffin (sense 2) with a spreading muffin top.

Etymology

From earlier moofin, of uncertain origin. Likely from Low German muffen, plural or possibly a diminutive of Low German muffe (“small cake”), both from Middle Low German muffe (“small pastry”). An alternative theory suggests a connection to Old French moflet (“tender, soft (bread)”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmʌfɪn/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌfɪn

Noun

muffin (plural muffins)

1. (Britain) A type of flattish bun, usually cut in two horizontally, toasted and spread with butter, etc, before being eaten; an English muffin.

   Synonym: (US) English muffin

2. A cupcake-shaped baked good (for example of cornbread, banana bread, or a chocolate dough), sometimes glazed but typically without frosting, eaten especially for breakfast (in contrast to a cupcake, which is a dessert).
   • For quotations using this term, see Citations:muffin.
3. (computing) A mechanism used in the Java Network Launching Protocol analogous to the cookie mechanism and which permits a program running in a browser to perform operations on a client machine.
   • 2001, JNLP and Java Web Start, Sun Developer Network, Technical Articles and Tips, 30 May 2001:

     The name/value pairs provided by the PersistenceService are similar to browser cookies. The Java Web Start implementation honors this legacy by naming the pairs "muffins.

4. (slang) Term of endearment.

   I love you, muffin!

5. (vulgar, sexual slang) Female pubic hair; female genitals (vulva, vagina), like muff.
   • 1986, “Stuffin' Martha's Muffin”, in Frenzy, performed by Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper:

     I wanna be stuffin' Martha'smuffin!

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:vagina

6. (baseball, slang) A less talented player; one who muffs, or drops the ball.
7. (slang) A charming, attractive young man. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
8. (dated) A small plate, smaller than a twiffler.
9. (UK dialect, Northern England (especially Manchester)) Another word for a roll, bap or cob, even one that isn’t flat or toasted.[1]

Derived terms

• English muffin
• make muffins
• muffin cap
• muffin top
• muffin-warm
• muffiny
• stud muffin

Descendants

• → Danish: muffin
• → French: muffin
• → German: Muffin
• → Norwegian Bokmål: muffins
• → Polish: muffin
• → Portuguese: muffin

Translations

flattish bun, English muffin

Arabic: Hijazi Arabic: مَفِن‎ m (mafin) Esperanto: mafino French: muffin (fr) m German: Muffin (de) m Polish: proziak m

cupcake-shaped baked good, American muffin

Esperanto: mafino French: muffin (fr) m German: Muffin (de) m Polish: muffin (pl) m, muffinek m, muffinka f

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked‌: "individual cake"

Bulgarian: мъ́фин m (mǎ́fin) Chinese: Mandarin: 瑪芬／玛芬 (zh) (mǎfēn) Danish: muffin c Dutch: muffin (nl) Finnish: muffini (fi), muffinssi (fi) Hebrew: מופין‎ m (mufin), מאפין‎ m (mafin) Hungarian: muffin (hu) Icelandic: múffa f Italian: muffin (it) m Japanese: マフィン (mafin) Kannada: ಮಫಿನ್ (maphin) Korean: 머핀 (meopin) Malay: mufin, baulu (ms) Maori: komeke Marathi: मफिन n (maphin) Norwegian: muffin, muffins (no) m Persian: مافین‎ (mâfin) Polish: muffin (pl), muffinka, muffinek Portuguese: queque (pt) m, bolo inglês m, muffin m Romanian: brioșă (ro) f Russian: кекс (ru) m (keks), ма́ффин (ru) m (máffin) Spanish: muffin m, magdalena (es) f Swedish: muffins (sv) c or n Telugu: మఫిన్ (te) (maphin) Ukrainian: ма́фін m (máfin)

See also

• (term of endearment, small bread): cupcake

Verb

muffin (third-person singular simple present muffins, present participle muffining, simple past and past participle muffined)

1. To eat muffins.
   • 1837, Benjamin Disraeli, Benjamin Disraeli Letters: 1835-1837, Toronto; Buffalo; London: University of Toronto Press, published 1982, →ISBN, page 319:

     I dined yesterday at | three on mutton chops and 1/2 pint of E[ast] I [ndian] sherry, and then tead and muffined at 8.

   • 1965 October 12, “Gingerbread Muffins Start Day Off Right”, in The Calgary Herald, Calgary, Alta., page 39:

     And now comes a recipe guaranteed to keep the family happily muffined.

   • 1987 January 27, Concetta Doucette, “Savings”, in Impact (Albuquerque Journal Magazine), volume 10, number 15, page 13:

     NANCY SCRAPES OFF the mold without complaining because it is like a gift from Carl, and she doesn’t have the heart to tell him she is muffined out …

   • 1988 February 28, Bea Lewis, The Newsday Magazine, page 35:

     HAVE YOU muffined out, had more than your share of croissants?

   • 2005, Marlin E. Misner, editor, History of the Reagan Home: The Boyhood Home in Dixon, Illinois, →ISBN, page 35:

     We met about 8:00 A.M. for the usual continental breakfast – I am getting over muffined!

   • 2007, Jane Sigaloff, The Romancipation of Maggie Hunter, Red Dress Ink, →ISBN, page 159:

     ‘So what I can get you to celebrate. Bit of cake?’ ‘I’m all muffined up, thanks!’

   • 2017, Carrie Ewin; Chris Ewin; Cheryl Ewin, “Lesson 5: Creating Text Posts”, in Facebook for Seniors: Connect with Friends and Family in 12 Easy Lessons, San Francisco, Caif.: No Starch Press, →ISBN, section “Viewing Your Posts on Your Timeline”, page 97:

     Hehe, I've eaten three apple muffins this morning. I've all muffined out!

2. To feed muffins.
   • 1866, Emma Jane Worboise, “The St. Beetha’s Temperance Society”, in St. Beetha’s; or, The Heiress of Arne, London: “Christian World” Office, […]; Jackson, Walford, and Hodder, […], page 213:

     But one or two evil-disposed characters muttered they might be sure the lady had her own turn to serve, and they might be sure they wasn’t “teaed and muffined and sandwiched for nothing!”

   • 1999, Working Woman, page 96:

     We were caffeined and muffined and then asked to seat ourselves at any of several large round tables.

   • 2001, Nancy Huston, Dolce Agonia, Toronto, Ont.: McArthur & Company, →ISBN, page 102:

     Well, you know, my mother always told me to welcome new neighbors with muffins, and I just realized you’ve already been here six months and I still haven’t gotten around to baking muffins for you … Well anyway, that’s all I wanted to tell you — consider yourself muffined!

3. To become like a muffin; to increase in size.
   • 2009 August, Sophie Littlefield, A Bad Day for Sorry, New York, N.Y.: Minotaur Books, →ISBN, page 48:

     A pale band of flesh muffined up over her shorts, her lively top not quite up to the task of covering it, and Chrissy tugged at the fabric ineffectively.

   • 2009 December, James Axler [house name; Nick Pollotta], “Prologue”, in Time Castaways (Deathlands), Worldwide Library, page 16:

     In spite of wearing the largest size of body armor available, her ample breasts were simply much too big, and deliciously muffined over the top.

   • 2013, E[lizabeth] F[rancine] Winters, chapter 15, in Sharks and Minnows (book one of The Jolie Chronicles), Kenspeckle Productions, LLC, →ISBN, page 173:

     Baby fat muffined over the top of Rebecca’s jeans.

   • 2014, Terry Dowling, “The Four Darks”, in Ellen Datlow, editor, Fearful Symmetries: An Anthology of Horror, ChiZine Publications, →ISBN, page 117:

     Allan Grace was lean, but his neck muffined out over the crisp white collar.

   • 2014, David Mason, Walk Across Australia: The First Solo Crossing, Rosenberg Publishing, →ISBN:

     Beers rested on bellies that muffined over shorts.

   • 2016, Adam Biles, Feeding Time, Galley Beggar Press, →ISBN:

     It may have been Nurse Agnes’ looping signature that touched him off, or the way flesh muffined from the pumps of the fat lady that boarded the bus at his stop every morning: a spark is a spark, and one was as good as any other.

4. To make like a muffin.
   • 1920, The Windsor Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly for Men and Women, page 418:

     Twanty-two harrin’ and t’ree ship’s biscuits, muffined like! Ah, yew doan’t know what muffined biscuits be!

   • 1924, Edmund Vance Cooke, “Fat”, in Companionable Poems, page 183:

     WE HAVE too many raisins in our cake; / Our bread is muffined.

   • 1944, Harper’s Bazaar, page 63:

     Toques high as Queen Mary’s or low as a pillbox, extended and thickened and muffined at the edge.

   • 1990, Caleb Pirtle, The Land Where We Belong, Leisure Time Publishing, →ISBN, page 91:

     Muffined Eggs with Mushrooms

5. Alternative letter-case form of MUFFIN
   • 1981 July 6, Joel Pitt, “InfoWorld Software Review: Micro-Painter: Apple Coloring Program”, in InfoWorld, section “Usefulness”, page 16:

     (The package may also be “muffined” by those users who wish to take advantage of the greater disk capacity available using the new Apple DOS 3.3).

   • 1982, Microcomputing, page 157:

     Print II is supplied on a DOS 3.2 disk (it can be muffined to DOS 3.3 ), which contains programs to customize Print II for specific memory configurations and several simple demonstration programs.

   • 1983, InCider, pages 83 and 92:

     Second, any material that is indicated as 3.2 DOS must either be muffined to 3.3 DOS, or booted after using the Basics Utility to reconfigure your DOS to 13-sector. […] DOS 3.2 is used in this mode, but files may be muffined to DOS 3.3 if desired.

References

• muffin at OneLook Dictionary Search

1. Matthew Smith (2018-07-20), “Cobs, buns, baps or barm cakes: what do people call bread rolls?”, in YouGov‎, YouGov, retrieved 2021-12-02

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Danish

Etymology

From English muffin.

Noun

muffin c (singular definite muffinen, plural indefinite muffins)

1. muffin (cake)

Declension

Declension of muffin

common gender	Singular		Plural
	indefinite	definite	indefinite	definite
nominative	muffin	muffinen	muffins	muffinsene
genitive	muffins	muffinens	muffins'	muffinsenes

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French

Etymology

From English muffin.

Pronunciation

• (France) IPA^(key): /mœ.fin/

  • Audio (France)

    (file)

• (Quebec) IPA^(key): /mɔ.fin/, /mɔ.fœn/

  • Audio (Quebec)

    (file)

Noun

muffin m (plural muffins)

1. muffin

Further reading

• “muffin”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

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Polish

Alternative forms

• muffinka
• muffinek

Etymology

Borrowed from English muffin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈma.fin/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -afin
• Syllabification: mu‧ffin

Noun

muffin m anim

1. muffin (cake)

Declension

Declension of muffin

	singular	plural
nominative	muffin	muffiny
genitive	muffina	muffinów
dative	muffinowi	muffinom
accusative	muffina/muffin	muffiny
instrumental	muffinem	muffinami
locative	muffinie	muffinach
vocative	muffinie	muffiny

Further reading

• muffin in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• muffin in Polish dictionaries at PWN

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Portuguese

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English muffin.

Noun

muffin m (plural muffins)

1. muffin (type of small cake)

   Synonyms: queque, bolo inglês