PORTAL • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Portal

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/pˈɔrtəl/ Listen

noun

Portal n.

A door or gate; hence, a way of entrance or exit, especially one that is grand and imposing. "Thick with sparkling orient gems The portal shone." "From out the fiery portal of the east."

(Arch.)

(a)

The lesser gate, where there are two of different dimensions.

(b)

Formerly, a small square corner in a room separated from the rest of the apartment by wainscoting, forming a short passage to another apartment.

(c)

By analogy with the French portail, used by recent writers for the whole architectural composition which surrounds and includes the doorways and porches of a church.

(Bridge Building) The space, at one end, between opposite trusses when these are terminated by inclined braces.

A prayer book or breviary; a portass. (Obs.)

Portal bracing (Bridge Building), a combination of struts and ties which lie in the plane of the inclined braces at a portal, serving to transfer wind pressure from the upper parts of the trusses to an abutment or pier of the bridge.

adjective

Portal adj. (Anat.) Of or pertaining to a porta, especially the porta of the liver; as, the portal vein, which enters the liver at the porta, and divides into capillaries after the manner of an artery. Note: Portal is applied to other veins which break up into capillaries; as, the renal portal veins in the frog.

See images of 'Portal'

Etymology of 'Portal'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Portal" Quotes from Famous Books

... each by separate doors; Baba led Juan onward room by room Through glittering galleries and o'er marble floors, Till a gigantic portal through the gloom, Haughty and huge, along the distance lowers; And wafted far arose a rich perfume: It seem'd as though they came upon a shrine, For all was ...

— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... boulevard there was a gravelled driveway with a stone portal. The iron gates were thrown wide, and at his entrance Ford stood aside to let an outgoing auto-car have the right of way. Being full of his errand, and of the abstraction of a depressed soul, Ford merely remarked that there were two persons ...

— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... accompanied these words with a gesture, beckoning the young ladies to follow her, and led the way through the second room, to the heavy wooden portal of ...

— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... I was at River Hall. Looking up at its cheerless portal, I was amazed at first to see the outside lamp flaring away in the darkness. Then I remembered that all the other gas being out, of course this, which I had not turned off, would blaze ...

— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell

... awakened terrific images in her mind, and she almost expected to see banditti start up from under the trees. At length, the carriages emerged upon a heathy rock, and, soon after, reached the castle gates, where the deep tone of the portal bell, which was struck upon to give notice of their arrival, increased the fearful emotions, that had assailed Emily. While they waited till the servant within should come to open the gates, she anxiously ...

— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

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