porcupine
any of several rodents covered with stiff, sharp, erectile spines or quills, as Erethizon dorsatum of North America.
Origin of porcupine
1Words Nearby porcupine
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use porcupine in a sentence
After Red Bench, it became a skeleton woods, the trees charred but standing, their bare, blackened trunks rising like porcupine quills across the land.
At Glacier’s Edge, the Flames Have Always Come for My Family Cabin | jversteegh | August 20, 2021 | Outside OnlineTitmice — and one chickadee — have been caught on video tugging hair from dogs, cats, humans, raccoons and even a porcupine.
Scientists have a new word for birds stealing animal hair | Jaime Chambers | August 12, 2021 | Science NewsSoon after, Pieciul spotted what he first thought was a “cute porcupine” 50 feet away.
The ATC recommends using bear canisters, which also protect supplies from mice, porcupines, raccoons, skunks, and other nocturnal visitors.
These forces can be represented as one arrow or two arrows, or a whole slew of arrows bristling from the airplane, porcupine fashion.
The science behind how an aircraft glides | By Peter Garrison/Flying Mag | September 3, 2020 | Popular-Science
He is the author of Broken Glass, Memoirs of a porcupine, and African Psycho, among others.
My heart was racing, my hands felt like they were covered with porcupine quills.
‘You Have 30 Seconds’: The Real Captain Phillips’s Gripping Memoir | Captain Richard Phillips, Stephan Talty | October 11, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTOne day, the porcupine has had enough, and turns to writing a memoir.
Mabanckou pairs the porcupine with a Congolese boy, who attacks and kills neighbors and strangers with little provocation.
The Kutchin make pretty pipe-stems out of goose-quills wound about with porcupine-quills.
Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce | E. R. Billings.Mr. Van Britt blew his cheeks out until the stubby, cropped mustache bristled like porcupine quills.
The Wreckers | Francis LyndeFrom the Jim Crow a drowsy porcupine trundled away bristling.
Blazed Trail Stories | Stewart Edward WhiteThe porcupine, meanwhile, had found something that interested him.
The Watchers of the Trails | Charles G. D. RobertsOnly the porcupine was quite undaunted by the strange sounds.
The Watchers of the Trails | Charles G. D. Roberts
British Dictionary definitions for porcupine
/ (ˈpɔːkjʊˌpaɪn) /
any of various large hystricomorph rodents of the families Hystricidae, of Africa, Indonesia, S Europe, and S Asia, and Erethizontidae, of the New World. All species have a body covering of protective spines or quills
Origin of porcupine
1Derived forms of porcupine
- porcupinish, adjective
- porcupiny, adjective
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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