porous

English

WOTD – 9 August 2006

Etymology

From Old French poros, from Latin porus (“an opening”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɔːɹəs/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔːɹəs

Adjective

porous (comparative more porous, superlative most porous)

1. Full of tiny pores that allow fluids or gasses to pass through.

   Sponges are porous so they can filter water while trapping food.

   Concrete is porous, so water will slowly filter through it.

2. (figurative) With many gaps.
   • 2011 May 14, Peter Scrivener, “Sunderland 1 - 3 Wolverhampton”, in BBC Sport‎^[1]:

     However, Wolves porous defence opened up again to gift Sunderland a foothold in the game - Sessegnon sweeping in a Zenden corner that was inexplicably allowed to bounce in the six-yard box.

3. (figurative, by extension) full of loopholes

Synonyms

• (full of holes): permeable

Translations

full of tiny pores

• Armenian: ծակոտկեն (hy) (cakotken)
• Asturian: porosu
• Bulgarian: порест (bg) (porest)
• Catalan: porós (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 多孔的 (zh) (duōkǒng de)

• Danish: porøs (da)
• Esperanto: pora (eo)
• Estonian: poorne, urbne
• Finnish: huokoinen (fi)
• French: poreux (fr)
• Galician: poroso (gl)
• German: porös (de)
• Greek:

  Ancient: χαῦνος (khaûnos), σομφός (somphós), πολύτρητος (polútrētos)

• Indonesian: porus
• Italian: poroso (it) m
• Japanese: 多孔質の (たこうしつの, takōshitsu no), 多孔の (たこうの, takō no)
• Kurdish:

  Northern Kurdish: kunkunî (ku)

• Latin: porōsus, multicavus
• Malay: ڤوروس‎ (poros)
• Maori: pōareare, koropungapunga
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: porøs

  Nynorsk: porøs

• Persian: متخلخل‎ (fa) (motexalxel)
• Portuguese: poroso (pt)
• Russian: по́ристый (ru) (póristyj)
• Spanish: poroso (es)
• Swedish: porös (sv)
• Tagalog: malabuga
• Turkish: gözenekli (tr)
• Vietnamese: please add this translation if you can

full of loopholes

(figuratively) with many gaps