boffin [1940s] All that is known for sure about boffin is that it originated in the Second World War as naval slang for an older officer. In 1945 there was the first reference to a person engaged in complex scientific or technical research, when The Times wrote of ‘A band of scientific men who performed their wartime wonders at Malvern and apparently called themselves “the boffins” ’. As with so many words that start out as slang, the origin is not known. The US slang term boff, dating from the 1920s and meaning ‘to have sex with’ [1950s], is unrelated. It first meant ‘to hit or strike’, and arose as an imitation of the sound of a blow.