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Port   /pɔrt/   Listen
noun
Port  n.  A dark red or purple astringent wine made in Portugal. It contains a large percentage of alcohol.



Port  n.  
1.
A place where ships may ride secure from storms; a sheltered inlet, bay, or cove; a harbor; a haven. Used also figuratively. "Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads." "We are in port if we have Thee."
2.
In law and commercial usage, a harbor where vessels are admitted to discharge and receive cargoes, from whence they depart and where they finish their voyages.
Free port. See under Free.
Port bar. (Naut,)
(a)
A boom. See Boom, 4, also Bar, 3.
(b)
A bar, as of sand, at the mouth of, or in, a port.
Port charges (Com.), charges, as wharfage, etc., to which a ship or its cargo is subjected in a harbor.
Port of entry, a harbor where a customhouse is established for the legal entry of merchandise.
Port toll (Law), a payment made for the privilege of bringing goods into port.
Port warden, the officer in charge of a port; a harbor master.



Port  n.  
1.
A passageway; an opening or entrance to an inclosed place; a gate; a door; a portal. (Archaic) "Him I accuse The city ports by this hath entered." "Form their ivory port the cherubim Forth issuing."
2.
(Naut.) An opening in the side of a vessel; an embrasure through which cannon may be discharged; a porthole; also, the shutters which close such an opening. "Her ports being within sixteen inches of the water."
3.
(Mach.) A passageway in a machine, through which a fluid, as steam, water, etc., may pass, as from a valve to the interior of the cylinder of a steam engine; an opening in a valve seat, or valve face.
Air port, Bridle port, etc. See under Air, Bridle, etc.
Port bar (Naut.), a bar to secure the ports of a ship in a gale.
Port lid (Naut.), a lid or hanging for closing the portholes of a vessel.
Steam port, and Exhaust port (Steam Engine), the ports of the cylinder communicating with the valve or valves, for the entrance or exit of the steam, respectively.



Port  n.  The manner in which a person bears himself; deportment; carriage; bearing; demeanor; hence, manner or style of living; as, a proud port. (archaic) "And of his port as meek as is a maid." "The necessities of pomp, grandeur, and a suitable port in the world."



Port  n.  (Naut.) The larboard or left side of a ship (looking from the stern toward the bow); as, a vessel heels to port. See Note under Larboard. Also used adjectively.



verb
Port  v. t.  (past & past part. ported; pres. part. porting)  
1.
To carry; to bear; to transport. (Obs.) "They are easily ported by boat into other shires."
2.
(Mil.) To throw, as a musket, diagonally across the body, with the lock in front, the right hand grasping the small of the stock, and the barrel sloping upward and crossing the point of the left shoulder; as, to port arms. "Began to hem him round with ported spears."
Port arms, a position in the manual of arms, executed as above.



Port  v. t.  (Naut.) To turn or put to the left or larboard side of a ship; said of the helm, and used chiefly in the imperative, as a command; as, port your helm.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Port" Quotes from Famous Books



... around, watched their opportunity, and captured two of our most richly-freighted ships; but as those seas were swarming with British cruisers, they were shortly re-captured and sent to England, where the whole fleet soon arrived. The West-India fleet came into port about the same time; and the amount of wealth brought into London by the safe arrival of the Bengal, China, and West-India fleets, must have been almost incredible. For myself, I was consigned to a dreary prison, 'as will more particularly ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... Her French pronunciation gave an odd grace to the sentences; the little hesitation spaced and accentuated their meaning; and I liked what I had written when she read it. The afternoons at Parays which we spent together in this way! Prints of Mere Angelique and Ces Messieurs de Port Royal watching over us in her spacious bedroom, brown and yet light like the library it had become; and among those Jansenist worthies, the Turin Pallas Athena, with a sprig of green box as an offering from our friend. ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee

... you a country where the cows have to bend their backs to let the sun go down. Ha-ha! Show you women too—red-lipped girls in sunbonnets, that'll look good after the splay-footed crows you see out here. Tell you what: We'll pick up the Orient boat at Port Said—no P. and O. for me; I'm a passenger aboard ship, not a horrible example!— and make a wake for the Bull's Kid. Murder! Won't ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy

... and lupins were sent to them, with smoked scombri, that excellent scombri which Carthage dispatched to every port. But they walked scornfully around the magnificent cattle, and disparaging what they coveted, offered the worth of a pigeon for a ram, or the price of a pomegranate for three goats. The Eaters of Uncleanness came forward as arbitrators, and declared that they were being duped. Then they drew ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... time in or west from Glasgow[166]. For a party of English dragoons being there, and one of them on horseback called for some ale, and drank to the confusion of the covenants. Another of his comrades asking him at the stable-green port, where he was going, he answered, To carry King to hell. But this poor wretch had not gone far whistling and singing, till his carbine accidentally went off, and killed him on the spot. God shall shoot at them with an arrow, suddenly shall they be ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie


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