Word.ws English Dictionary

porpentine

porpentine is the obsolete form of porcupine.

Meaning of porcupine

Noun

porcupine (plural porcupines)

  1. Any of several rodents of either of the taxonomic families Hystricidae (Old World porcupines) or Erethizontidae (New World porcupines), both from the infraorder Hystricognathi, noted for their sharp spines or quills, which are raised when the animal is attacked or surprised.
    • I have no evidence of grizzlies killing porcupines or vice versa. However, occasionally there is contact and sometimes a grizzly is injured or a porcupine killed, but the latter is rare.1981, Adolph Murie, The Grizzlies of Mount McKinley, page 218
    Synonyms:
    spine pig, porky
  2. (Australia, dated) An echidna.

Forms of porpentine

pluralporpentines
alternative formporpintine

Questions about porpentine

What is porpentine the obsolete form of?
Porpentine is the obsolete form of porcupine.

Words near porpentine in the dictionary

  1. porousness
  2. porousnesses
  3. poroviscoelastic
  4. poroviscoelasticity
  5. poroxidase
  6. porpentine
  7. porpentines
  8. porpess
  9. porpesse
  10. porpesses
  11. porpezite

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: porpentine (page history and authors); porcupine (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “porpentine.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/porpentine. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.