Porcelain vs. Earthenware — What's the Difference?

Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating materials, generally including a material like kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between 1,200 and 1,400 °C (2,200 and 2,600 °F). The strength, and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainly from vitrification and the formation of the mineral mullite within the body at these high temperatures.

Earthenware is glazed or unglazed nonvitreous pottery that has normally been fired below 1,200 °C (2,190 °F). Basic earthenware, often called terracotta, absorbs liquids such as water.

A hard, white, translucent ceramic made by firing a pure clay and then glazing it with variously colored fusible materials; china.

Pottery made of clay fired to a porous state which can be made impervious to liquids by the use of a glaze

An object made of this substance.

Pottery made from a porous clay that is fired at relatively low temperatures. Faience, delft, and majolica are examples of earthenware.

A hard white translucent ceramic, originally made by firing kaolin, quartz, and feldspar at high temperatures but now also inclusive of similar artificial materials; also often (figurative) such a material as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

An opaque, semi-porous ceramic made from clay and other compounds.

Syn of china: porcelain tableware.

Vessels and other utensils, ornaments, or the like, made of baked clay. See Crockery, Pottery, Stoneware, and Porcelain.

Syn of kaolin: the kind of clay traditionally used in China to manufacture porcelain.

Ceramic ware made of porous clay fired at low heat

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

Syn of cowrie.

Syn of wampum: 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.

Purslain.

A fine translucent or semitransculent kind of earthenware, made first in China and Japan, but now also in Europe and America; - called also China, or China ware.

Ceramic ware made of a more or less translucent ceramic