porpoise

English

Phocoena phocoena (1)

Pronunciation

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• Rhymes: -ɔː(r)pəs

Etymology

From Middle English porpeys, purpeys, from Anglo-Norman porpeis, purpeis, Old French pourpois, pourpais, porpeis (“porpoise”), from Vulgar Latin *porcopiscis (“porpoise”, literally “pig-fish”), from Latin porcus (“pig”) + piscis (“fish”). Compare (in transposed order) obsolete Italian pesce porco and Portuguese peixe porco; also Latin porcus marinus (“sea hog”), akin in formation to German Meerschwein, English mereswine. More at mereswine.

Noun

Wikipedia porpoise (plural porpoises)

1. A small cetacean of the family Phocoenidae, related to whales and dolphins.
2. (North America, imprecisely) Any small dolphin.

Synonyms

• gairfish, mereswine, sea hog, seaswine

Translations

cetacean

Catalan: marsopa (ca) f. Cherokee: ᏗᏁᏍᏆᏕᎩᏳᏍᏗ (chr) (dinesquadegiyusdi) Chinese: Mandarin: 鼠海豚 (cmn) (shǔhǎitún) Czech: sviňucha (cs) f. Dutch: bruinvis (nl) m. Finnish: pyöriäinen (fi) French: marsouin (fr) m. German: Tümmler (de) m., Schweinswal (de) m. Italian: focena (it) f. Japanese: ネズミイルカ (ja) (nezumiiruka) Khmer: សមុទ្រសុករ (km) (sak mut su kak rak) Korean: 돌고래 (ko) (dolgorae) Lithuanian: jūrų kiaulė f. (in most cases)

Navajo: tééh hóyáanii Polish: morświn (pl) m. Portuguese: toninha (pt) f. Romanian: marsuin (ro) m. Russian: морская свинья (ru) (morskája svin’já) f. Scottish Gaelic: peileag (gd) f., puthag (gd) f., cana (gd) m. Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: плискавица (sh) f., морско прасе (sh) n. Roman: pliskavica (sh) f., morsko prase (sh) n. Spanish: marsopa (es) f. Swahili: poposi (sw) Welsh: llamhidydd (cy) m. Wolof: piipa bi (wo)

imprecisely, any small dolphin

Verb

porpoise (third-person singular simple present porpoises, present participle porpoising, simple past and past participle porpoised)

1. (intransitive) Said of an aircraft: to make a series of plunges when taking off or landing.

See also

• dolphin
• killer whale
• pod
• sea lion
• seal
• whale
• Appendix:English collective nouns