Porpoise

Quick meaning: Porpoise is a noun meaning A small cetacean of the family Phocoenidae, related to dolphins and whales.

Meaning

A small cetacean of the family Phocoenidae, related to dolphins and whales.

More Meanings

1. (Canada, US, loosely) Any small dolphin.
2. (intransitive) Said of an air-breathing aquatic animal such as a porpoise or penguin: To repeatedly jump out of the water to take a breath and dive back in a continuous motion.
3. (intransitive) Said of an aircraft: to make a series of plunges when taking off or landing; or of a watercraft: to successively plunge up and down in the water.

Example Sentences

Near-synonyms: sea hog, sea pig, seaswine, mereswine

They captured 25 porpoises and set them free back into the Yangtze after raising them for a month in Puqi County, Hubei.

Urging them to join me, I raced in circles through the surging water, chased my tail for the children, blew spouts of foam through the sunfilled spray, porpoised to and fro across the river in shallow leaps that stitched the air and water into a table-lace of foam.

Word Forms

• porpoises
• porpoising
• porpoised

Synonyms for porpoise

Depending on context, synonyms include phocoenid, seaswine, mereswine, balloon.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include harbour, finless, seahog, phocoenid, whale, pontoporiid.

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