buffon

This is a word with a suspiciously busy modern life and almost no documented ancient ancestry. The supplied Wiktionary entry records buffon as a noun, but gives no etymological trail—no Latin ancestor, no Greek root, not even a securely identified older English form. Online slang uses it in two sharply different ways: as a nickname for Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, and as an insult for an excessively large, puffy hairstyle. The goalkeeper sense is plainly tied to the surname Buffon, while the hairstyle sense may echo English puff or puffy, though that connection is only a plausible resemblance, not a proven derivation. In short, buffon is a linguistic mystery wearing two costumes: one in a football jersey, the other under an enormous cloud of hair.