Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The act or an instance of carrying.
- n. A charge for carrying.
- n. Nautical The carrying of boats and supplies overland between two waterways or around an obstacle to navigation.
- n. Nautical A track or route used for such carrying.
- v. Nautical To transport or travel by portage: canoed and portaged the goods; portaging around the rapids.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The act of carrying; carriage; transportation.
- n. That which is carried or transported; cargo; freight; baggage.
- n. Tonnage; burden of a vessel.
- n. The price paid for carriage; freight-charges.
- n. A break in a chain of water-communication over which goods, boats, etc., have to be carried, as from one lake, river, or canal to another, or along the banks of rivers round waterfalls, rapids, or the like; a carry.
- n. An opening; a port or port-hole.
- To carry; pack, as a boat around a portage.
- To carry; proceed by carrying (a boat or load); make a portage.
Wiktionary
- n. An act of carrying, especially the carrying of a boat overland between two waterways
- n. The route used for such carrying
- n. A charge made for carrying something
- v. nautical To carry a boat overland
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A sailor's wages when in port.
- n. The amount of a sailor's wages for a voyage.
- n. obsolete A porthole.
- n. The act of carrying or transporting.
- n. The price of carriage; porterage.
- n. obsolete Capacity for carrying; tonnage.
- n. A carry between navigable waters. See 3d Carry.
- v. To carry (goods, boats, etc.) overland between navigable waters.
WordNet 3.0
- n. overland track between navigable waterways
- n. the cost of carrying or transporting
- n. carrying boats and supplies overland
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Old French, from porter, to carry, from Latin portāre; see per-2 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The reason for having children, of course, is so that you can express yourself through their "portage"--and a cargo bike has way more smug-appeal than a rideable stroller:”
“A portage is a place between lakes and rivers where the waters become so shallow or rapid that they cannot be navigated, and the boats have to be lifted ashore and carried overland until it is possible to take to the water again.”
“In this, as in every other part of their territories, the Company use boats for the transport of property; but by a very judicious arrangement, much time and labour are saved at this portage, which is said to be twelve miles in length.”
Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory Volume I.
“The French word portage, for example, was already in common use before the end of the seventeenth century, and soon after came chowder, cache, caribou, voyageur, and various words that, like the last-named, have since become localisms or disappeared altogether.”
Chapter 2. The Beginnings of American. 2. Sources of Early Americanisms
“The portage was a short one, scarce two hundred yards in length, and at the upper end was a small green meadow in which river voyagers camped.”
“That appreciation and expression of the beautiful is something that the French explorers in that other world -- the valley reached of the pioneers of the seeing eyes and the understanding hearts -- have carried and will continue to carry over those same portages, to give that virile life of the west some of those higher satisfactions of which this daughter of the portage is the prophetess.”
“They had reached what is called a portage or carrying-place, and there are hundreds of such places all over Rupert's Land.”
“Hodge, who went through this way to the St. Lawrence in the service of the State, calls the portage here a mile and three quarters long, and states that Mud Pond has been found to be fourteen feet higher than Umbazookskus Lake.”
“We set out on the 14th before day, and effected the portage, which is long and difficult.”
“The portage is a fine road through a handsome plain.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘portage’.
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EN - archaic words
abide, abjure, abroad, adamant, afield, aforetime, aghast, anon, apace, argent, assuage, aught and 328 more...
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The -ages of Man(-age)
Trivet also has this list, which you should go see. And then I found this list, and this list...
manage, salvage, selvadge, savage, voyage, umbrage, entourage, homage, carriage, marriage, language, potage and 123 more...
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Tag! You're it.
tag, tags, tagging, Tagalog, baronetage, montage, tagalong, Rabindranath Tagore, uredostage, ragtag and bobtail, voltage, price tag and 96 more...
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-age
condition; result of; account; number of; cost of; place of; collection of; home of; to act
marriage, acreage, postage, steerage, peerage, hermitage, forage, Hermitage, pilgrimage, baggage, blockage, carnage and 24 more...
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let's go on an adventure
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elij's Words
diegesis, intrinsic, semantic, salience, nonchalant, infosthetics, ambiguous, altruism, cynical, abstruse, vatic, encomium and 137 more...
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for words
based upon per- indo-european root
turnverein, veer, frump, far, per, paramount, paramour, parget, parterre, parvenu, perissodactyl, palanquin and 133 more...
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What's next here?
thunderhead, thundercloud, cumulus, cumulonimbus, fibrous, hazy, glaciated, cirrus, nimbus, meteorology, fahrenheit, thermoscope and 285 more...
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botello360's list
ruminate, steel, bifurcation, arrivederci, portage, tactile, ruminant, rift, anecdotage, diacritic, cud, hull and 399 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, P
pellucid, pertain, pampas, prate, pinecone, philistine, pantocrator, papaverine, postmeridian, potlatch, pharology, pinniped and 622 more...
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Into the Wild
List of vocabulary words built while reading Into the Wild for summer reading.
7/10escarpment, amalgam, muskeg, derelict, cordillera, anomaly, posit, convivial, mien, inimical, credo, portage and 40 more...
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Color
chartreuse, bisque, fuchsia, magenta, portage, vermillion, periwinkle, mauve, azure, heliotrope, aquamarine, canary and 14 more...
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wordage
-age words
verbiage, decoupage, coinage, slayage, usage, carnage, damage, courage, savage, beverage, language, blockage and 82 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for portage.
bilby "We had traded our slightly too small aluminum canoe for a much too big dugout. In this vessel, carved from a single tree, seventeen Indians at one time travelled with us. With all their baggage added to ours and everyone aboard, the vast canoe still looked rather empty. Portaging it, this time with only four or five Indians to help, over half a mile of boulders beside a large waterfall, was depressing to contemplate."
- Jean Liedloff, 'The Continuum Concept', 1975. Oct 24, 2011