porcine
Americanadjective
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of or relating to swine.
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resembling swine; hoggish; piggish.
adjective
Etymology
Origin of porcine
Explanation
You might be tempted to describe your greedy lunch companions as porcine, but you should try to resist the urge. Porcine means "like a pig." The adjective porcine is a scientific term for talking about pigs, but it's also useful for describing anything — or anyone — resembling a pig. A large, shiny-faced man might appear porcine to you, and so might a group of hungry kids who shove and jostle each other to get their hands on a plate of brownies. The Latin root is porcus, or "pig."
Vocabulary lists containing porcine
A Lexical Zoo of Animal Adjectives
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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.
The researchers then tested the treatment in a porcine model of heart attack and saw similar results.
From Science Daily • May 5, 2026
Children who cannot have porcine gelatine in medical products will be offered an injection.
From BBC • Sep. 14, 2024
Instead, the Conservancy resorted to a five-year experimental birth control plan in 2009, injecting female bison with the contraceptive porcine zona pellucida.
From National Geographic • Jan. 18, 2024
For example, the company Revivicor, which is owned by United Therapeutics and provided the pigs used in the University of Maryland transplants, leaves the porcine viral genes intact.
From Scientific American • Oct. 11, 2023
“I’ve always figured him for porcine parentage myself,” Wilem said dryly.
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
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.
