Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🐡 A blowfish 🍣 A risky delicacy
puffer

puffer

4 6.9
A marine fish with spines that fills its body to look like a ball and scare predators, sometimes poisonous
  • noun
  • /ˈpʌfər/
translation icon : pez globo
  • It was originally discovered in the ova and skin of the puffer fish, which is prized as a delicacy in Japan.
  • puffer fish

Red Halloween lips that were serving as the lips of the puffer fish pumpkin.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • At the aquarium, we marveled at how the puffer fish can inflate itself to scare away predators.

  • Here we see the puffer fish.

    Strange Wilderness (2008)

  • Remember when I had that puffer fish?

    Vegas Vacation (1997)

  • Ever see a puffer fish?

    Blog text (29)

  • That's a dog-faced puffer fish over there.

    Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999)

  • And the puffer fish, which produces one of nature's most powerful poisons... tetrodotoxin.

    The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)

  • Using underwater cameras, the team discovered that the artist is a small puffer fish only a few inches in length that swims tirelessly through the day and night to create these vast organic sculptures.

    Blog text (4)

  • A newly constructed exhibit, entitled "Terrors of the Deep," immerses guests in breathtaking coral reefs that are home to more than a thousand eels, lionfish, puffer fish, barracuda, and sharks.

    Academic text (1991)

  • The puffer fish is known for its unique ability to puff up into a round shape when it feels threatened.

  • While snorkeling, I spotted a puffer fish darting among the coral reefs, its body ready to inflate.

Synonyms

blowfish
vspuffer
14 7.7

A fish that swells up and has poison that can be deadly

emphasizes the physical spiny elongated fish features rather than culinary use
pufferfish
vspuffer
1 6.3

A fish that becomes round and is often poisonous

stresses the spiny elongated body as well as inflating and poison
balloonfish
vspuffer
1 8.4

A small sea fish with short spines that inflates its body when threatened

refers to the spiny elongated poisonous group rather than a small related species
globefish
vspuffer
9.8

A sea fish with spines that swells into a round ball and is often poisonous

is the same meaning but uses a different name
spiny puffer
vspuffer
8.8

A pufferfish with stiff spines that stand out when it inflates

is the broader category rather than only the spiny specialized type

Compounds

puffer jacket
1 2.4

A warm jacket filled with down or synthetic material that looks puffy

spiny puffer
8.8

A pufferfish with stiff spines that stand out when it inflates

Surface Forms

puffer singular
puffers plural

Morphology

puffer = puff (transparent) = puff + er

Formed by the productive suffix '-er' on 'puff' meaning 'one that puffs'; the fish's ability to inflate makes the derivation clear.

Etymology

Puffer comes from the simple English verb puff, which means 'to blow' or 'fill with air'. The fish can 'puff' itself into a round ball to scare predators, so it is called a puffer.