PORCUPINE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Porcupine

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/pˈɔrkjəpˌaɪn/ Listen

noun

Porcupine n.

1.

(Zool.) Any Old Word rodent of the genus Hystrix, having the back covered with long, sharp, erectile spines or quills, sometimes a foot long. The common species of Europe and Asia (Hystrix cristata) is the best known.

2.

(Zool.) Any species of Erethizon and related genera, native of America. They are related to the true porcupines, but have shorter spines, and are arboreal in their habits. The Canada porcupine (Erethizon dorsatus) is a well known species.

Porcupine ant-eater (Zool.), the echidna.

Porcupine crab (Zool.), a large spiny Japanese crab (Acantholithodes hystrix).

Porcupine disease (Med.). See Ichthyosis.

Porcupine fish (Zool.), any plectognath fish having the body covered with spines which become erect when the body is inflated. See Diodon, and Globefish.

Porcupine grass (Bot.), a grass (Stipa spartea) with grains bearing a stout twisted awn, which, by coiling and uncoiling through changes in moisture, propels the sharp-pointed and barbellate grain into the wool and flesh of sheep. It is found from Illinois westward.

Porcupine wood (Bot.), the hard outer wood of the cocoa palm; so called because, when cut horizontally, the markings of the wood resemble the quills of a porcupine.

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Etymology of 'Porcupine'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Porcupine" Quotes from Famous Books

... over my parlour floor, a slight tap drew me to the door. On opening it I perceived the old squaw, who immediately slipped into my hand a set of beautifully-embroidered bark trays, fitting one within the other, and exhibiting the very best sample of the porcupine quill-work. While I stood wondering what this might mean, the good old creature fell upon my neck, and kissing me, exclaimed, "You remember old squaw—make her comfortable! Old squaw no forget you. Keep them for ...

— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... produced not a few political pamphlets in the strictest sense of the term, the infinitely greater part of his work is comprised during his earlier days in the volumes of Peter Porcupine's Gazette, during his later in those of the Weekly Register. This latter, however, he himself for a time actually entitled The Weekly Political Pamphlet, while he alluded to it under that name even at other times; and his whole work was imbued even more ...

— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... feat the blazon of a porcupine, with this inscription, Unus agminis vires habet—"One man has the ...

— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... friendship; harmony followed, and war and bloodshed were thought of no more. It was happy for us that our white faces and calm behaviour produced the effect it did on these people; in another minute our bodies would have been as full of arrows as a porcupine's is full of quills. 'I thought you were children of heaven fallen from the skies,' said the chief, in ...

— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... I in my innocence did deem The words you uttered in the last campaign Did true portray the situation here, But now I fear they were but party gush. But, ah! "The pen is mightier than the sword." These venomed quills must be from porcupine; For deeper do they bore, as I reflect That I invited all their smarting wounds. I sought to give their idol Worcester but His proper place by "damning with faint praise;" And now they prod me as the muleteer Doth goad his ...

— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

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