boffin, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

boffin n.

also boff

[ety. unknown, although according to Robert Watson-Watt (1892–1973), the inventor of radar, the term ‘has something to do with an obsolete type of aircraft called the Baffin, something to do with that odd bird, the Puffin’ (Three Steps to Victory, 1957)]

any form of scientific expert, orig. those RAF scientists who were working on radar.

1946		G. Gibson Enemy Coast Ahead (1955) 205: The scientists had not been idle. ‘Boffins’, we call them, why I don’t know.
1959		K. Amis letter 15 Dec. in Leader (2000) 567: A four-handed game of Halma with the boffin.
1973		B.S. Johnson All Bull 241: I really don’t know why the boffins don’t do something about it.
1985		B. Robinson Aussie Bull 41: Some years back, the Educational ‘boffins’ decided that kids should ask, ‘why?’ .
1990		T. Winton Human Torpedo 119: There were no surfers — only science boffins.
1995		I. Rankin Let It Bleed 57: All the forensic boffins looked about nineteen years old.
2000		Indep. Rev. 25 May 4: ‘Jesus, what a boff,’ say the dudes in the fourth form, if one of their number is able to differentiate between, say, India and the West Indies.
2008		R. Fortey Dry Store Room No. 1 154: The boffins come blinking into the light.
2013		Guardian 6 July 15/2: A mild-mannered boffin.
2013		Brisbane Times On Line 16 Aug. 🌐 Australian boffins brew up a hydrating beer.