porpoise

English

Phocoena phocoena (1)

Pronunciation

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)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, sea pig, seaswine

Translations

cetacean

• Abkhaz: please add this translation if you can
• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• 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
• Georgian: please add this translation if you can
• German: Tümmler (de) m, Schweinswal (de) m
• Greek:

  Ancient Greek: please add this translation if you can

• Icelandic: hnísa (is) f, marsvín (is) n
• 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)
• Laz: please add this translation if you can

• Lithuanian: jūrų kiaulė (lt) f (in most cases)
• Macedonian: морска свиња (mk) (mórska svínja) f
• Maori: tūpoupou (mi)
• Navajo: tééh hóyáanii
• Polish: morświn (pl) m
• Portuguese: toninha (pt) f
• Romanian: marsuin (ro) m
• Russian: морская свинья (ru) (morskája svin’já) f
• Scots: dunter
• 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)
• Telugu: నీరుపంది (te)
• Turkish: please add this translation if you can
• Ukrainian: please add this translation if you can
• Vietnamese: cá heo (vi)
• Welsh: llamhidydd (cy) m
• Wolof: piipa bi (wo)

imprecisely, any small dolphin

• Finnish: delfiini (fi)

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