PORPOISE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does porpoise mean? 

• PORPOISE (noun)
  The noun PORPOISE has 1 sense:

1. any of several small gregarious cetacean mammals having a blunt snout and many teeth

  Familiarity information: PORPOISE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PORPOISE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any of several small gregarious cetacean mammals having a blunt snout and many teeth

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("porpoise" is a kind of...):

dolphin (any of various small toothed whales with a beaklike snout; larger than porpoises)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "porpoise"):

harbor porpoise; herring hog; Phocoena phocoena (the common porpoise of the northern Atlantic and Pacific)

Phocoena sinus; vaquita (a short porpoise that lives in the Gulf of California; an endangered species)

Holonyms ("porpoise" is a member of...):

genus Phocoena; Phocoena (porpoises)

 Context examples 

“What a porpoise you do grow!”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

They were never quiet, ceaselessly playing deck-quoits, tossing rings, promenading, or rushing to the rail with loud cries to watch the leaping porpoises and the first schools of flying fish.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Porpoises and dolphins, I believe, will be frequently observed athwart our Bows; and, either on the starboard or the larboard quarter, objects of interest will be continually descried.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)