Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The character or state of being portly in manner, appearance, or person; dignified bearing or stately proportions.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The quality or state of being portly; dignity of mien or of personal appearance; stateliness.
  • noun Bulkiness; corpulence.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The quality of being portly

Etymologies

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Examples

  • After having a thorough look at the patient, the good doctor could not find anything wrong outside of the patient's extreme portliness.

    How Dr. Keynes Will Kill The Patient 2010

  • After having a thorough look at the patient, the good doctor could not find anything wrong outside of the patient's extreme portliness.

    How Dr. Keynes Will Kill The Patient 2010

  • After having a thorough look at the patient, the good doctor could not find anything wrong outside of the patient's extreme portliness.

    Michael Pento: How Dr. Keynes Killed the Patient 2010

  • His thin, shaky voice suggested that you, too, could sing with a band if you loved doing it enough; his guitar-playing radiated joy and ease, without a trace of guitar-hero affectation; and his increasing portliness, a trial to Garcia himself, clearly gave others a sense of comfort.

    Requiem For The Dead 2008

  • Slams against the first brother-in-law infuriated him, as did jokes based on his portliness and the degrading claims about his relationship with Hillary her “Baby Hughie” and his pitifully impotent run for the U.S. Senate in Florida.

    Outgunned PETER HARRY BROWN DANIEL G. ABEL 2003

  • Slams against the first brother-in-law infuriated him, as did jokes based on his portliness and the degrading claims about his relationship with Hillary her “Baby Hughie” and his pitifully impotent run for the U.S. Senate in Florida.

    Outgunned PETER HARRY BROWN DANIEL G. ABEL 2003

  • The weighty bundle of weapons carried upon the chest throws back the body so as to give it a wonderful portliness, and moreover, the immense masses of clothes that swathe his limbs force the wearer in walking to swing himself heavily round from left to right, and from right to left.

    Eothen 2003

  • The Aquilonians were a tall race, averaging five feet, ten and three fourths inches in height, and were generally inclined to be rangy, though in the last generations the city dwellers inclined toward portliness.

    The Coming of Conan The Cimmerian Howard, Robert E. 2003

  • He looks like a family portrait by a Flemish artist, he himself weighing down the front of the picture with his portliness and his long brown beard, whilst the faces of his family are arranged in two groups for the background.

    Twilight in Italy 2003

  • Slams against the first brother-in-law infuriated him, as did jokes based on his portliness and the degrading claims about his relationship with Hillary her “Baby Hughie” and his pitifully impotent run for the U.S. Senate in Florida.

    Outgunned PETER HARRY BROWN DANIEL G. ABEL 2003

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