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porcupine

/ˈpɔː(ɹ)kjʊˌpaɪn/noun

porcupine is a noun meaning “Any of several rodents of either of the taxonomic families Hystricidae (Old World porcupines) or Erethizontidae (New World porcupines), both from the…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled P-O-R-C-U-P-I-N-E and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 1 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of porcupine is porcupines.

What does porcupine mean?

noun

  1. 1

    Any of several rodents of either of the taxonomic families Hystricidae (Old World porcupines) or Erethizontidae (New World porcupines), both from the infraorder Hystricognathi, noted for their sharp spines or quills, which are raised when the animal is attacked or surprised.

  2. 2

    AustraliadatedAn echidna.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce porcupine?

  • /ˈpɔː(ɹ)kjʊˌpaɪn/
  • /ˈpɔː(ɹ)kiˌpaɪn/
  • /ˈpɔː(ɹ)kɪˌpaɪn/

Porcupine has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-porcupine.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of porcupine

  • porcupines plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is porcupine?

Porcupine appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 33,636th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Porcupine in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchporc-épic (rodent of the family Hystricidae)
GermanStachelschwein (rodent of the family Hystricidae), Baumstachler, Urson (rodent of the family Erethizonidae)
Portugueseporco-espinho (rodent of the family Hystricidae), quandu (rodent of the family Erethizonidae)
Spanishpuercoespín (rodent of the family Hystricidae)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does porcupine come from?

From Middle English porke despyne, from Old French porc-espin, from Latin porcus (“pig”) + spinus (“spine”), hence also spine pig. Cognate with Spanish puercoespín, Italian porcospino, Portuguese porco-espinho.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).