Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A porch or walkway with a roof supported by columns, often leading to the entrance of a building.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In architecture, a structure consisting essentially of a roof supported on at least one side by columns, sometimes detached, as a shady walk, or place of assemblage, but generally, in modern usage, a porch or an open vestibule at the entrance of a building; a colonnade. Porticos are called tetrastyle, hexastyle, octastyle, decastyle, etc., according as they have four, six, eight, ten, or more columns in front; in classical examples they are also distinguished as prostyle or in antis, according as they project before the building or are inclosed between its side walls prolonged.
Wiktionary
- n. A porch, or a small space with a roof supported by columns, serving as the entrance to a building.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Arch.) A colonnade or covered ambulatory, especially in classical styles of architecture; usually, a colonnade at the entrance of a building.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a porch or entrance to a building consisting of a covered and often columned area
Etymologies
- From Italian portico, from Latin porticus ("porch"), from porta ("gate"). (Wiktionary)
- Italian, from Latin porticus, from porta, gate. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Behind the portico was a covered walkway leading to the villa itself.”
“Close to the walls of the portico are the remains of another building, which had probably been a temple similar to the above, and not a part of the same structure, for I could not perceive any corresponding parts in the two buildings.”
“The western portico, which is by far the best preserved, was examined by two trenches; in 2006 we dug a test sounding within the shops behind the portico.”
“In the chief street of Elgin, the houses jut over the lowest story, like the old buildings of timber in London, but with greater prominence; so that there is sometimes a walk for a considerable length under a cloister, or portico, which is now indeed frequently broken, because the new houses have another form, but seems to have been uniformly continued in the old city.”
“The form of a portico is the arrangement of its columns; the form of a melody is the order of sounds.”
“The portico was a sort of trysting place for the family and visitors on summer afternoons and evenings, and some of the thirty or so Windsor chairs bought for it are still in existence.”
“At each end of the portico is a small cabinet, with appropriate paintings: in one of them a painting of Venus, Mars, and”
“The portico, which is of massive dimensions, is approached by a commanding flight of granite steps, which runs round three sides of it.”
“Seated in state on the portico was the governor, surrounded by judges of the Supreme Court, officers, and citizens.”
Tecumseh A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. 17 of Chronicles of Canada
“Under the portico was a marble tablet, inscribed in good Latin, to the pious memory of a Pozzo di Borgo [35], who restored the chapel in 1632.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘portico’.
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Gene Wolfe
Please contribute your favorite words from any of Gene Wolfe’s books to this prize-winning list.
In case you come across words in this list which are too commonplace to fit in, please ...gallipot, roost, badelaire, oblesque, execration, dhole, amschaspand, arctother, chalcedony, penitence, asimi, autarch and 839 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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Thresholds
we are all just passing through.
(boundaries, portals and liminal spaces/times)cockcrow, interface, thin line, portal, postern, littoral, interstice, port, membrane, skin, crepuscule, dawn and 304 more...
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LIT - Odyssey - key words and phrases
Key words of the Odyssey by Homer in English including all those famous repeating epitethons like
"bright-eyed Athene"
"wine-dark sea"
"rosy-fingered dawn"
"long suf...yearling, wild celery, Wain, Themis, talon, slither, sedge, sea eagle, scurf, rile, prevaricate, poplar tree and 732 more...
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G...R...E
gross.
sybarite, restiveness, churl, nepotism, jingoism, pusillanimous, gaffe, incisive, enervate, bucolic, concomitant, abeyance and 158 more...
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inkhorn's Words
inkhorn, aplomb, apotheosis, asinine, avatar, bombastic, boorish, bromide, bucolic, cagey, canvass, digress and 991 more...
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Wharton, Edith. Age of Innocence. 1920
A list of difficult words for L2-12 learners.
Faust, erection, metropolitan, splendor, shabby, conservatives, cherished, inconvenient, clung, acoustics, coupe, scramble and 261 more...
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euphonic logorrhea
cephalopodous, plumulaceous, oblomovism, etiolation, pavonine, somnolent, logorrhea, fulguration, gossamer, prestidigitation, daffodil, inchoate and 174 more...
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Building Parts
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wickedwitch's list
lll
alit, plinth, eclat, diaphanous, portico, nival, daedal, apse, fossa, pellet, avail, midge and 143 more...
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jagosaurus's favorites
Words I like mostly because of the way they sound and feel.
ticonderoga, petulance, snark, estimable, chickahominy, feline, gezellig, gneiss, shit, willy-nilly, shelter, coda and 366 more...
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colleen's words ii
sibilant, sundry, spindle, distaff, device, mortar, pestle, scythe, flail, thresh, frown, elementary and 495 more...
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hedges's Words
wii, crepuscule, adumbrate, concatenation, sufi, qawwali, furry, riot, mellifluous, conspiracy, etymology, tea cozy and 369 more...
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Nabokov vocabulary
verisimilitude, geminate, pedantic, intervestibular, equilibrist, nictitating, anastomosis, quiddity, torus, cacahuete, undulation, pensum and 135 more...
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Time for a new list!
abrupt, erupt, rupture, sync, appropinquity, heterochromia, homochromatic, monochromatic, willy nilly, nitty gritty, kowtow, wonton and 455 more...
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Professional Scrabble Lexicon (TWL)
A myriad of game-changing words every Scrabble addict must have in his arsenal.
Keep in mind that these are all tried-and-true feasibly playable words selected for their handiness, i.e...paragon, pignora, ganef, suttee, origan, ohia, aioli, abasement, lehr, mho, tallow, harelike and 843 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for portico.
pikachu Trees, trees, millions of trees, massive, immense, running up high; and at their foot, hugging the bank against the stream, crept the little begrimed steamboat, like a sluggish beetle crawling on the floor of a lofty portico.
--Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad Mar 9, 2011
ofravens Through portico of my elegant house you stalk
With your wild furies, disturbing garlands of fruit
from "Conversation Among the Ruins," Sylvia Plath Mar 26, 2008