porous

English

WOTD – 9 August 2006

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɔːɹəs/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔːɹəs

Adjective

porous (comparative more porous, superlative most porous)

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

   Synonym: permeable

   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 or loopholes.
   • 2011 May 14, Peter Scrivener, “Sunderland 1 - 3 Wolverhampton”, in BBC Sport‎^[1]:

     However, Wolves ^[sic] 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.

   • 2012, Miguel Antonio Levario, Militarizing the Border: When Mexicans Became the Enemy, page 125:

     […] a porous border consequently positioned migrants from Mexico and ethnic Mexicans residing in the United States as potential terrorists.

Derived terms

• porous portal

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)
• Dutch: poreus (nl)
• 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 (ja) (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)
• Polish: porowaty (pl)
• 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

Chuukese

Noun

porous

1. Alternative form of poraus