porcelain
Americannoun
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porcelains
plural
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a strong, vitreous, translucent ceramic material, biscuit-fired at a low temperature, the glaze then fired at a very high temperature.
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ware made from this.
noun
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a more or less translucent ceramic material, the principal ingredients being kaolin and petuntse (hard paste) or other clays, ground glassy substances, soapstone, bone ash, etc
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an object made of this or such objects collectively
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(modifier) of, relating to, or made from this material
a porcelain cup
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of porcelain
1520–30; < French porcelaine < Italian porcellana originally, a type of cowry shell, apparently likened to the vulva of a sow, noun use of feminine of porcellano of a young sow, equivalent to porcell ( a ), diminutive of porca sow ( see pork, -elle) + -ano -an
Explanation
Your mom's favorite white china plates are probably made out of porcelain. Porcelain is a nearly translucent ceramic material used to make plates, bowls, and cups. The dishes at a fancy restaurant are often porcelain, a fine, delicate kind of china. Sometimes knickknacks, dolls, and art objects are also made from porcelain. The word comes from the Italian word for "cowrie shell," porcellana, which compares the shiny look of porcelain to the polished inside of a shell. Porcelain has a tricky spelling — although it ends with ain, it rhymes with ten, not rain.
Vocabulary lists containing porcelain
The House on Mango Street
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Brown Girl Dreaming
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White
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Now precious metals, gemstones, and culturally significant artefacts including Chinese porcelain are increasingly targeted, according to Europol's report.
From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026
Most of the porcelain was made for the European market, underscoring a subtext of cross-fertilization, already stated by Islamic ceramics imitating Chinese blue and white.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026
Portugal's Vista Alegre, the oldest and largest porcelain maker in the Iberian country, decided to install energy storage systems in 2022, seizing the opportunity of abundant funds from the EU's Recovery and Resilience Plan.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
A woman approached the stall where Vadym and his wife, who sells porcelain, had laid out what they had left, and asked the price of an elegant lamp with a cream-coloured shade.
From Barron's ● Aug. 20, 2026
His warm ivory skin is free from a single imperfection, like a porcelain doll behind a glass case.
From "Starfish" by Akemi Dawn Bowman
In a clever piece of installation design, shelves built around the screen bring the painting’s illusions to life, displaying real bronzes, porcelains, texts and scholarly objects from Lee’s collection—modern curation fulfilling classical cultural capital.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 6, 2026
By the late fifteenth century, Ottoman ships were trading with India, and goods such as Chinese silks and porcelains furnished the homes of the wealthy in Istanbul.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
In the 1970s, he pronounced a wealthy collector’s Chinese porcelains fake — a declaration confirmed by experts from the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 19, 2020
The latter piece, titled “The Barmecide Feast,” is well built — down to the corny Late Empire porcelains employed as backdrop on the luminous white set.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 2017
More or less independent later experiments in France and England led to Sevres, Wedgwood, and Spode porcelains.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
