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A hard white translucent ceramic, originally made by firing kaolin, quartz, and feldspar at high temperatures but now also inclusive of similar artificial materials; also often (figurative) such a material as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.

Porcelain tableware. +

(obsolete) The kind of clay traditionally used in China to manufacture porcelain. +

An object made of porcelain, (particularly) art objects or items of tableware.

(rare) Cowrie.

(obsolete or historical) Strings of shells, beads, etc. used as ornamentation or currency; the composite shells, beads, etc. +

A kind of pigeon with deep brown and off-white feathers.

To coat with a porcelain enamel.