porcupine
Americannoun
-
porcupines
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of porcupine
1375–1425; late Middle English porcupyne, variant of porcapyne; replacing porke despyne < Middle French porc d'espine thorny pig. See pork, spine
Explanation
A porcupine is a prickly rodent, a round forest animal that's covered in sharp, protective quills. How do you pet a porcupine? Very, very carefully. Porcupine comes from Latin roots, porcus, "pig," and spina, "spine or quill." Fittingly, a regional name for the porcupine is "quill pig." The porcupine is famous for its spines, which become spikier when it's afraid or angry. Less well known is the fact that porcupines also clatter their teeth loudly as a warning — all the more reason for your dog to feel embarrassed after she ends up with a nose full of porcupine quills.
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:
Uniforms that sprouts porcupine quills at the tug of a collar?
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 15, 2026
What followed was a comedy of errors including military drills that outpaced anything this group of office workers had in mind, a rogue porcupine, stranded airplanes and one syringe to the butt of an employee.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 6, 2026
A bloodied but determined honey badger pursues a Cape porcupine in Botswana.
From BBC ● Feb. 4, 2025
So when Florida Museum paleontologist Art Poyer found an exquisitely preserved porcupine skeleton in a Florida limestone quarry, they were well aware of its significance.
From Science Daily ● May 28, 2024
But they were allowed to keep it because the porcupine boosted everyone's spirits, uniting them.
From Nazi Saboteurs by Samantha Seiple
They lack the adorable charisma of chinchillas, porcupines, moles or rats, though.
From Salon ● May 11, 2025
The samples from the stall that contained the coronavirus also contained DNA from a variety of animals, including dogs, rabbits, hoary bamboo rats, Malayan porcupines and masked palm civets.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 21, 2024
Raccoon dogs, masked palm civets, hoary bamboo rats and Malayan porcupines have transmitted bat coronaviruses before, the study authors noted.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 21, 2024
Other animals identified as a potential source of the pandemic were the masked palm civet, which was also associated with the Sars outbreak in 2003, as well as hoary bamboo rats and Malayan porcupines.
From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2024
"Nor do we. Not real tails," the porcupines said.
From "Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust" by Eve Bunting
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.
