PORPOISE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Porpoise

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/pˈɔrpəs/ Listen

noun

Porpoise n.

(Zool.) Any small cetacean of the genus Phocaena, especially Phocaena communis, or Phocaena phocaena, of Europe, and the closely allied American species (Phocaena Americana). The color is dusky or blackish above, paler beneath. They are closely allied to the dolphins, but have a shorter snout. Called also harbor porpoise, herring hag, puffing pig, and snuffer.

(Zool.) A true dolphin (Delphinus); often so called by sailors.

Skunk porpoise, or Bay porpoise (Zool.), a North American porpoise (Lagenorhynchus acutus), larger than the common species, and with broad stripes of white and yellow on the sides.

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Etymology of 'Porpoise'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Porpoise" Quotes from Famous Books

... there were more than one million collected for the Tammany campaign. No one can show where so much as two hundred thousand dollars were honestly disbursed. Let me tell a story; it may suggest an idea to our diligent friends of the Dailies. There is a rotund, porpoise-shaped globular gentleman known of these parts as 'Bim the Button Man.' This personage went into the printing business at the beginning of the late campaign and went out of it—like blowing out a candle—at the close. Bim the Button Man, for his brief parade as a printer, took ...

— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various

... until something occurs in the speech which for some reason sounds funny, or memorable, or very exaggerated, or, perhaps, merely concrete; then he writes it down and waits for the next one. If the orator says that the Premier is like a porpoise in the sea under some special circumstances, the reporter gets in the porpoise even if he leaves out the Premier. If the orator begins by saying that Mr. Chamberlain is rather like a violoncello, the reporter does not even wait to hear why ...

— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton

... hundred yards from us the battle was fought. We could distinctly observe the two monsters engaged in deadly conflict. But it now seems to me as if the other animals were taking part in the fray - the porpoise, the whale, the lizard, the tortoise. Every moment I seem to see one or other of them. I point them to the Icelander. He shakes his ...

— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... Island Ground, Cape Porpoise Peaks. Extending over a piece of bottom made up of blue clay with numerous rocky patches, this ground has depths of from 20 to 50 fathoms. Bearing about NE. from Cape Porpoise and distant from 4 to 5 miles, it lies in a N. and S. direction ...

— Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine • Walter H. Rich

... said Captain Arms, "you're the commodore, but if we don't hang our timbers on the Mountains of the Moon, or the Alps, or old Ararat, I'm a porpoise. Why can't you keep circling round at a safe distance, in the middle of the Atlantic, until all these reefs get a good depth of ...

— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

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