Penguin

The word penguin first appears in the 16th century as a synonym for great auk When European explorers discovered what are today known as penguins in the Southern Hemisphere, they noticed their similar appearance to the great auk of the Northern Hemisphere, and named them after this bird, although they are not closely related. The etymology of the word penguin is still debated. The English word is not apparently of French, Breton or Spanish origin (the latter two are attributed to the French word pingouin "auk"), but first appears in English or Dutch.Some dictionaries suggest a derivation from Welsh pen, "head" and gwyn, "white", including the Oxford English Dictionary, the American Heritage Dictionary the Century Dictionary and Merriam-Webster on the basis that the name was originally applied to the great auk, either because it was found on White Head Island (Welsh Pen Gwyn) in Newfoundland, or because it had white circles around its eyes (though the head was black). However, the Welsh word pen is also used to mean "front", "foremost part" or "extremity" and therefore "white front" is far more likely to be the sense in which Welsh sailors used the term when referring to the bird. Indeed, the Welsh expression for "bow" or "prow" of a ship is "pen blaen" (front point/tip An alternative etymology links the word to Latin pinguis, which means "fat". In Dutch, the alternative word for penguin is "fat-goose" (vetgans see: Dutch wiki or dictionaries under Pinguïn), and would indicate this bird received its name from its appearance.