Word.ws English Dictionary

muffin

/ˈmʌf.ɪn/

muffin noun: a type of flattish bun, usually cut in two horizontally, toasted and spread with butter, etc., before being eaten. Also the alternative letter-case form of MUFFIN.

Noun

muffin (plural muffins)

  1. (UK) A type of flattish bun, usually cut in two horizontally, toasted and spread with butter, etc., before being eaten.
    • […] but he had still at intervals a kind listener in Mrs. Phillips, and was by her watchfulness, most abundantly supplied with coffee and muffin.1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter XVI, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume I, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 174
    • We take a less gloomy view of our errors now our father confessor listens to us over his egg and coffee. We are more distinctly conscious that rude penances are out of the question for gentlemen in an enlightened age, and that mortal sin is not incompatible with an appetite for muffins.1859, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XVI, in Adam Bede […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    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).
    • Aubrey got a bowl of soup, a cup of coffee, beef stew, and bran muffins, and took them to an empty seat by the window. He ate with one eye on the street.1919, Christopher Morley, “(please specify the page)”, in The Haunted Bookshop, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC
    • Newland and his wife had had no idea of obeying this injunction; but Mrs. Carfry, with her usual acuteness, had run them down and sent them an invitation to dine; and it was over this invitation that May Archer was wrinkling her brows across the tea and muffins.1920, Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
  3. (colloquial, endearing) Term of endearment.
    • I love you, muffin!
  4. (slang, vulgar) The vulva or vagina; pubic hair around it.
    • I wanna be stuffin' Martha's muffin!1986, “Stuffin' Martha's Muffin”, in Frenzy, performed by Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper
    • Is your muffin buttered?2004, Tina Fey, Mean Girls (motion picture), spoken by Jason (Daniel DeSanto)
  5. (slang) A less talented player; one who muffs, or drops the ball.
  6. (dated or LGBTQ slang) A charming, attractive young man.
  7. (dated) A small plate, smaller than a twiffler.
  8. (Northern England, UK, dialectal, especially Manchester) A roll, bap or cob, which may or may not be flat or toasted.
  9. (slang) A very weak shot in ice hockey where the puck does not travel fast.
  10. (Canada, archaic, slang) A young woman who would regularly accompany a particular man during a social season.
    • I had a charming muffin yesterday. She is engaged to be married, so don't be alarmed.1854, Margaret Oliphant, quoting Laurence Oliphant, Memoir of the Life of Laurence Oliphant and of Alice Oliphant, His Wife, new edition, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, published...
    • The fair Canadians may have been too kind in accepting the name and position of "muffins" from the young Britishry; but the latter cannot say they have suffered much in consequence. A muffin is simply a lady who sits beside the male occupant of the sleigh—Sola cum solo, "and all the rest is leather...[1865, William Howard Russell, Canada: Its Defenses, Condition, and Resources, London: Bradbury and Evans, page 149
  11. (Java programming language) 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.
    • 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."2001 May 30, “Technical Articles and Tips”, in Sun Developer Network, archived from the original on 09 Jul 2008, JNLP and Java Web Start

Verb (1)

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

  1. (intransitive) To eat muffins.
    • I dined yesterday at | three on mutton chops and 1/2 pint of E[ast] I [ndian] sherry, and then tead and muffined at 8.1837, Benjamin Disraeli, Benjamin Disraeli Letters: 1835-1837, Toronto; Buffalo; London: University of Toronto Press, published 1982, →ISBN, page 319
    • And now comes a recipe guaranteed to keep the family happily muffined.1965 October 12, “Gingerbread Muffins Start Day Off Right”, in The Calgary Herald, Calgary, Alta., page 39
  2. (transitive) To feed muffins to.
    • 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!"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, […], →OCLC, page 213
    • We were caffeined and muffined and then asked to seat ourselves at any of several large round tables.1999, Working Woman, page 96
  3. (intransitive) To become like a muffin; to increase in size.
    • 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 August, Sophie Littlefield, A Bad Day for Sorry, New York, N.Y.: Minotaur Books, →ISBN, page 48
    • 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.2009 December, James Axler [house name; Nick Pollotta], “Prologue”, in Time Castaways (Deathlands), Worldwide Library, page 16
  4. (transitive) To make like a muffin.
    • Twanty-two harrin’ and t’ree ship’s biscuits, muffined like! Ah, yew doan’t know what muffined biscuits be!1920, The Windsor Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly for Men and Women, page 418
    • WE HAVE too many raisins in our cake; / Our bread is muffined.1924, Edmund Vance Cooke, “Fat”, in Companionable Poems, page 183

Proper noun capitalized: Muffin

Muffin

  1. (rare) A female given name.
  2. A surname.

Verb (2) capitalized: Muffin

Muffin (third-person singular simple present Muffins, present participle Muffining, simple past and past participle Muffined)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of MUFFIN.
    • Microsoft’s and SDS’s compilers come on 3.2 disks that may be Muffined to 3.3.1981, The Book of Apple Computer Software, The Book Company, page 192
    • Muffining Integer Basic Plus to DOS 3.3[…]DUAL BOOT is an excellent tool for modifying adventure disks and other disks that can not be Muffined to DOS 3.3 disks.1982, Call-A.P.P.L.E.

Verb (3) capitalized: MUFFIN

MUFFIN (third-person singular simple present MUFFINs, present participle MUFFINing, simple past and past participle MUFFINed)

  1. (transitive) To transfer files between 13-sector and 16-sector Apple II diskettes, as with MUFFIN (Move Utility For Files In NewDOS.)
    • Remember, MUFFINing a diskette won't harm your 13 sector diskette, and you can always boot 13 sector diskettes using BASICS.1980, Apple II, the DOS Manual: Disk Operating System
    • This presents no problem other than, of course, any 13 sector CCA files having to be MUFFINed to 16 sectors.1981, The Book of Apple Computer Software, The Book Company, page 93

Also used as

muffin is also the alternative letter-case form of MUFFIN.

muffin meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

muffin in Hindi

मफिन, मफीन, मफिनिंग

muffin in Tamil

மஃபின், முஃபின், மஃபின் செய்ய

muffin in Marathi

मफिन, मफीन, मफिनिंग

muffin in Urdu

مفن
More languagesFewer languages
muffin in Bengali
মাফিন maphin
muffin in Telugu
మఫిన్, ముఫిన్, మఫినింగ్
muffin in Malayalam
മഫിന്, മഫ്ഫിൻ, മഫിനിംഗ്
muffin in Kannada
ಮಫಿನ್, ಮಫೈನಿಂಗ್
muffin in Punjabi
ਮਫਿਨ
muffin in Gujarati
મફિન, મફીન, મફિનિંગ
muffin in Odia
ମଫିନ୍, ମଫିନ
muffin in Nepali
मफिन, मुफिन, मफिनिङ
muffin in Arabic
مَافِن māfin

Examples of muffin in a sentence

  • It was felt at once that the mouth did not come over from Sleswig with a band of Saxon pirates whose lips met like the two halves of a muffin.1878 January–December, Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder, & Co....
  • “A cup of tea and a muffin, please,” he ordered.1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC:
  • […] to prepare sustenance like roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, vinaigrettes, guacamole, and bananabread muffins.2007, New York, volume 40, page 129:
  • To start we'll go with an easy choice, a delicious chocolate muffin made with Mexican chocolate that goes well with ice cream or fruit […]2014, Martha Stone, Muffin Tin Menus: 32 Recipes That Are Delicious and Easy to Make, page 1:

All 40 example sentences with muffin

Synonyms of muffin

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of muffin

Forms of muffin

Noun
pluralmuffins
Verb
third-person singular presentmuffins
present participlemuffining
past participlemuffined
pastmuffined
third-person singular presentMuffins
present participleMuffining
past participleMuffined
pastMuffined
third-person singular presentMUFFINs
present participleMUFFINing
past participleMUFFINed
pastMUFFINed
alternative formMuffin
alternative formmuffin

Plural of muffin: muffins

Origin of muffin

From earlier moofin, probably a diminutive of Low German Muffe ("small cake"; Muffen (plural)), from Middle Low German muffe (“small pastry”). An alternative, and phonologically less plausible theory suggests a connection to Old French (pain) moflet (“roll”, literally “soft (bread)”). Sense “vulva” influenced by muff.

After the MUFFIN program written by Rich Williams at Apple, supposed to be an acronym of move utility for files in NewDOS.

Words formed from muffin

Phrases with muffin

Words that rhyme with muffin

Questions about muffin

What does muffin mean?
Muffin means a type of flattish bun, usually cut in two horizontally, toasted and spread with butter, etc., before being eaten.
What is muffin in Hindi?
Muffin in Hindi is मफिन, मफीन, मफिनिंग. See Muffin meaning in Hindi.
How do you use muffin in a sentence?
It was felt at once that the mouth did not come over from Sleswig with a band of Saxon pirates whose lips met like the two halves of a muffin.
What part of speech is muffin?
Muffin can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce muffin?
Muffin is pronounced /ˈmʌf.ɪn/.
What is the plural of muffin?
The plural of muffin is muffins.

Words near muffin in the dictionary

  1. muffettee
  2. muffettees
  3. Muffetts
  4. muffie
  5. muffies
  6. muffin
  7. muffin cap
  8. muffin caps
  9. muffin choker
  10. muffin chokers
  11. muffin cup

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: muffin (page history and authors); Muffin (page history and authors); MUFFIN (page history and authors); muffin (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); muffin (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); muffin (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); muffin (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); muffin (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); muffin (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); muffin (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); muffin (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); muffin (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); muffin (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); muffin (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-muffin.ogg.

Cite this entry: “muffin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/muffin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.