Word.ws English Dictionary

porphyre

porphyre is the obsolete form of porphyry.

Meaning of porphyry

Noun

porphyry (countable and uncountable, plural porphyries)

  1. A hard igneous rock consisting of large crystals in a fine-grained matrix.
    1. A purple-red rock of this kind.
      • A quartet of porphyry warriors, locked for all time in stern embrace outside St. Mark's Basilica, were probably carved in the Fourth Century. They are believed to represent the Roman Emperor Diocletian and the three men who held power with him.1980, Colin Thubron, Seafarers: The Venetians, page 43

See all 3 meanings of porphyry

Forms of porphyre

pluralporphyres

Questions about porphyre

What is porphyre the obsolete form of?
Porphyre is the obsolete form of porphyry.

Words near porphyre in the dictionary

  1. porphyraceous
  2. porphyran
  3. porphyranase
  4. porphyranases
  5. porphyrans
  6. porphyre
  7. Porphyrean
  8. porphyreous
  9. porphyres
  10. porphyria
  11. Porphyrian

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: porphyre (page history and authors); porphyry (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: “porphyre.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/porphyre. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.