Part 418

Milton.

From out the fiery portal of the east.

Shak.

2. (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.

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

4. 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.

Por"tal (?), a. (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.

Portal is applied to other veins which break up into capillaries; as, the renal portal veins in the frog.

||Por`ta*men"to (?), n. [It., fr. portare to carry.] (Mus.) In singing, ||or in the use of the bow, a gradual carrying or lifting of the voice ||or sound very smoothly from one note to another; a gliding from tone ||to tone.

Por"tance (?), n. See Port, carriage, demeanor. [Obs.] Spenser. Shak.

Por"tass (?), n. [OF. porte-hors a kind of prayer book, so called from being portable; cf. LL. portiforium.] A breviary; a prayer book. [Written variously portace, portasse, portesse, portise, porthose, portos, portus, portuse, etc.] [Obs.] Spenser. Camden.

By God and by this porthors I you swear.

Chaucer.

Por"tate (?), a. [L. portatus, p. p. of portare to carry.] (Her.) Borne not erect, but diagonally athwart an escutcheon; as, a cross portate.

Por"ta*tive (?), a. [Cf. F. portatif.] 1. Portable. [Obs.]

2. (Physics) Capable of holding up or carrying; as, the portative force of a magnet, of atmospheric pressure, or of capillarity.

Port"cluse (?), n. A portcullis. [Obs.]

Port`cray"on (?), n. [F. porte- crayon; porter to carry + crayon a crayon.] A metallic handle with a clasp for holding a crayon.

Port*cul"lis (?), n. [OF. porte coulisse, coleÔce, a sliding door, fr. L. colare, colatum, to filter, to strain: cf. F. couler to glide. See Port a gate, and cf. Cullis, Colander.] 1. (Fort.) A grating of iron or of timbers pointed with iron, hung over the gateway of a fortress, to be let down to prevent the entrance of an enemy. "Let the portcullis fall." Sir W. Scott.

She . . . the huge portcullis high updrew.

Milton.

2. An English coin of the reign of Elizabeth, struck for the use of the East India Company; -- so called from its bearing the figure of a portcullis on the reverse.

Port*cul"lis, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Portcullised (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Portcullising.] To obstruct with, or as with, a portcullis; to shut; to bar. [R.] Shak.

Porte (?), n. [F. porte a gate, L. porta. See Port a gate.] The Ottoman court; the government of the Turkish empire, officially called the Sublime Porte, from the gate (port) of the sultan's palace at which justice was administered.

||Porte"-co`chËre" (?), n. [F. See Port a gate, and Coach.] (Arch.) A ||large doorway allowing vehicles to drive into or through a building. ||It is common to have the entrance door open upon the passage of the ||porte-cochËre. Also, a porch over a driveway before an entrance door.

Port"ed (?), a. Having gates. [Obs.]

We took the sevenfold-ported Thebes.