Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An obsolete or dialectal spelling of porpoise.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A porpoise.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Obsolete form of porpoise.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • “I never would sell dem; I svore I never vood, on porpus to be revenged on dat Stobbs.”

    The Fatal Boots 2006

  • The teak coffin, Pughglasspanelfitted, feets to the east, was to turn in later, and pitly patly near the porpus, materially effecting the cause.

    Finnegans Wake 2006

  • I saw a porpoise -- porpus -- my enormous cousin, all of fifteen feet long, crowd in midst a multitude of swift little swimmers, as if he meant to make them help in spinning him through the water faster than he could go by himself.

    Lord Dolphin Harriet A. Cheever

  • _ -- Aw eese, Thomas; I da mine tha porpus; an I da mine tha udder, an tha milk o'n, too.

    The Dialect of the West of England; Particularly Somersetshire James Jennings

  • We've a mist ye iver zunz thic time, when we war at zea-wall, an cut aup tha girt porpus wi 'za many zalmon in hiz belly -- zum o'm look'd vit ta eat as thaw tha wor a bwiled, did'n thâ?

    The Dialect of the West of England; Particularly Somersetshire James Jennings

  • There! that sly little fish, like a salt water pickerel, nipped the tail of that great clumsy porpoise -- porpus -- so hard, I heard the big fish grunt.

    Lord Dolphin Harriet A. Cheever

  • Nay, master, said not I as much when I saw the porpus how he bounced and tumbled? they say they’re half fish half flesh; a plague on them! they ne’er come but I look to be washed.

    Act II. Scene I. Pericles, Prince of Tyre 1914

  • Mr. Perry wore orthodox leather boots the clergyman submitted to this infliction and prayed behind them in singular solitude, under mild protest; but when he arose one morning to offer up his regular petition, and beheld the cheerful apparition of Jack Perry's coffins confronting him, "The jolly old bum went under the table like a sick porpus" (as Mr.P. feelingly remarks), "and never shot off his mouth in that shanty again."

    The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) Various 1887

  • He had taken enough, however, to send him fast asleep in the bottom of the boat, where he lay, as Jerry observed, "like a porpus in a gale of wind."

    The Three Commanders William Henry Giles Kingston 1847

  • But he wasn't a chap to do a thing without a reason: if he'd been smoakin, I warrant he had smoked to some porpus.

    The Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush William Makepeace Thackeray 1837

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