Word.ws English Dictionary

porpintine

porpintine 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 porpintine

pluralporpintines

Questions about porpintine

What is porpintine the obsolete form of?
Porpintine is the obsolete form of porcupine.

Words near porpintine in the dictionary

  1. porphyroxine
  2. porphyry
  3. porphyry shell
  4. porphyry shells
  5. porpicide
  6. porpintine
  7. porpintines
  8. porpita
  9. porpitas
  10. porpitid
  11. porpitids

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: porpintine (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: “porpintine.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/porpintine. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.