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porcelain.

A hard white translucent ceramic, originally made by firing kaolin, quartz, and feldspar at high temperatures but now also inclusive of similar artificial materials; also often (figurative) such a material as a symbol of the fragility, elegance, etc. traditionally associated with porcelain goods.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈpɔːsəlɪn/Received-Pronunciation/ˈpɔɹs(ə)lɪn/General-American/ˈpɔɹs(ə)lən/General-American/ˈpoːs(ɘ)lɘn/New-Zealand
  1. A hard white translucent ceramic, originally made by firing kaolin, quartz, and feldspar at high temperatures but now also inclusive of similar artificial materials; also often (figurative) such a material as a symbol of the fragility, elegance, etc. traditionally associated with porcelain goods.

    uncountable · usually
    Tableware and toilets are both made of porcelain.
  2. Synonym of china: porcelain tableware.

    uncountable · usually
    He set the table with our porcelain and stemware.
  3. Synonym of kaolin: the kind of clay traditionally used in China to manufacture porcelain.

    obsolete · uncountable
  4. An object made of porcelain, (particularly) art objects or items of tableware.

    countable · plural-normally
    The museum has an extensive collection of rare Chinese porcelains.
  5. Synonym of cowrie.

    countable · rare
  6. Synonym of wampum: strings of shells, beads, etc. used as ornamentation or currency; the composite shells, beads, etc.

    countable · historical · obsolete
  7. A kind of pigeon with deep brown and off-white feathers.

    capitalized · countable · often
  8. The set of Git commands, such as `git commit` or `git checkout`, which control the high-level state of the repository, each typically combining the behaviour of multiple plumbing commands.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Middle French porcelaine (“cowrie, wampum; china, chinaware”), from Old Italian porcellana (“cowrie; china, chinaware”), from Italian porcello (“piglet”). The material was so called because of its resemblance to the shell of the cowrie. Why the cowrie was named with a word meaning “piglet” is unclear.

verb/ˈpɔːsəlɪn/Received-Pronunciation/ˈpɔɹs(ə)lɪn/General-American/ˈpɔɹs(ə)lən/General-American/ˈpoːs(ɘ)lɘn/New-Zealand
  1. To coat with a porcelain enamel.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Middle French porcelaine (“cowrie, wampum; china, chinaware”), from Old Italian porcellana (“cowrie; china, chinaware”), from Italian porcello (“piglet”). The material was so called because of its resemblance to the shell of the cowrie. Why the cowrie was named with a word meaning “piglet” is unclear.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.