woggin

English

Etymology

Unknown. Found from at least 1762 through the late 1800s, at first in reference to auks. Olson and Lund speculate it initially referred to auks, followed penguin in being applied to Southern penguins, and fell out of use for auks after they went extinct, and for penguins after being displaced by penguin; they say "Beane’s (1905: 88) rendering of the cry of a penguin as “wauk” suggests a possible onomatopoeic origin", or it may be connected to woggle (“wobble”), a word "used in connection with the great auk" (e.g. in a 1672 work by John Josselyn; and the 1885 Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York says early writers "quaintly called [auks] 'wobble-birds'").

Noun

woggin (plural woggins)

1. (chiefly nautical, slang, now historical) A great auk (in the northern hemisphere).
   • 1762, Journal of Micajah Coffin / logbook of the Sandwich, sloop of Nantucket, voyage of 1762, quoted by Olson and Lund (see further reading):

     4 mo 19th [19 April 1762] wind Started to Northward got on the [North Carolina Outer] Banks On the Latter Part Calm. Caught 10 wogens. […]

     5 mo 10th [10 May 1762] the Wind Came Round to the Northward in a Flurry or hard Squall. Spoke with Seth Clark [master of an unidentified whaler]. Saw Wogæns. I Judge we are Nigh the Banks.

   • 1775, logbook of the Desire, schooner of Wareham, Massachusetts, voyage of 1775–1775 to Davis Straits, quoted by Olson and Lund (see further reading):

     Sept 1775 [saw] wargins.

   • 1793, Abraham Russell, caption on a sketch (in his school navigation book) of an auk, held in the New Bedford Whaling Museum:

     Sea Waggin found on the banks of Newfound Land.

   • 2020, Tim Ecott, The Land of Maybe, Short Books, published 2021, page 81:

     The poor woggins were also periodically kept alive for a few months in Louis XVI's menagerie at Versailles.

2. (obsolete, nautical, slang) A penguin (in the southern hemisphere).
   • 1792 December 20, Silvanus Crosby, logbook of the Asia, ship of Nantucket, Massachusetts, voyage of 1791–1794, quoted by Olson and Lund (see further reading):

     at 1 PM Sent our Boat on Shore After Some refreshments She returned with A Plenty of Woggins we Cooked Some for Supper.

   • 1831, The Philadelphia Album and Ladies' Literary Port Folio, page 262:

     It was accordingly done by the command of the Captain, when the woggin, in a stately manner, walked as, and showed signs of happiness and contentment. He was perfectly tame, would suffer the approach of any one of the crew, ...

   • 1831, Naval Journal, page 27:

     One of the crew leaped upon the whale, and the woggin came fearlessly to his hand, and was taken on board. On holding a consultation, it was, determined to kill the strange bird and make a purse of his skin; but one, more humane than the [others, saved him].

   • 1880, Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, a Popular Journal of General Literature, page 519:

     The White man looked over his shoulder, and slowly wrinkled his leathem cheeks into an encouraging smile. 'Like ter near killed a woggin,' replied he sententiously. 'Will be ashore in a brace of shakes.' […]

   • 1887, W. H. Macy, beyond Desolation, in Ballou's Monthly Magazine, pages 234-5:

     "And there's a bag full of woggins' hearts, which we can roast on sticks, and who doubts that we shall make a heart-y supper?"

Further reading

• Cara Giaimo "What’s A Woggin? A Bird, a Word, and a Linguistic Mystery", Atlas Obscura (26 October 2016)
• Storrs L Olson, Judith N Lund, Whalers and woggins: a new vocabulary for interpreting some early accounts of the great auk and penguins (2007), in Archives of natural history 34 (1): 69–78 (mentions alternative spellings: wogæn, waggin, wargan, wargin, waugin, wogen, woggin, woging, woglin, yawgin)

Anagrams

• Gowing