Noun: porcelain
| Singular | porcelain |
| Plural | porcelains |
Sample Sentences
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Tableware and toilets are both made of porcelain.
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Any power rail needs to be well insulated from earth, to minimise current leakage, and so the two power rails on the Underground sit on curiously genteel and antique-looking porcelain pots. [2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 136:]
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iij. potts of Erthe payntid, callyd Porseland. [c. 1530, letter in Original Letters Illustrative of English History, Vol. II, p. 242]
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He set the table with our porcelain and stemware.
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[...] that earthen or pliable matter commonly called porcellan, which is pure white,... wherof vessels of all kinds are very curiously framed... [1599, E. de Sande, translated by Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation, 2nd edition, volume II, page 91:]
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The museum has an extensive collection of rare Chinese porcelains.
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In the kingdomes of Caiacan and Carazan, certaine sea shels are currant, which some men terme Porcelline. [1601, Giovanni Botero, translated by Robert Johnson, The Trauellers Breuiat, or, An Historicall Description of the Most Famous Kingdomes in the World, page 104:]
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We mett severall gangs of men to our greatest disadvantage, ffor we weare forced to sing, and those that came to see us gave porcelaine to those that most did us injury. [c. 1665, Pierre Esprit de Radisson, Voyages, 1885 edition, page 49:]
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Those pretty spangled Toys [...] known by various names, as Porcelains, Hyacinths, Ermines, &c. [1855, The Poultry Chronicle, number 3, page 9:]
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Coordinate term: plumbing
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The [2016, Jakub Narębski, “Keeping History Clean”, in Mastering Git, Birmingham, West Midlands: Packt Publishing Ltd., page 227:]
Nouns inflected like porcelain
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
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. See: Italian Nouns '
porcello'.