port: English has no fewer than five distinct words port, all of them going back to the Latin stem port-, a descendant of the Indo-European base *por- ‘going, passage’ (from which English also gets fare, ford, etc). Based on this stem was portus ‘harbour’ (etymologically a ‘place by which one enters’), which was borrowed into English as port ‘harbour’ [OE].
It is thought that the nautical port ‘left’ [17] originally denoted the side of the vessel facing harbour. And port the drink [17] gets its name from Oporto (literally ‘the port’), the town at the mouth of the river Douro in Portugal through which port is shipped. From Latin portus was derived the verb portāre, which presumably originally meant ‘bring into port’, but by classical times had broadened out to simply ‘carry’.
This gave English the military verb port ‘carry’ [16], and also underlies deport [15], export [15], import, important, portable [14], portfolio [18] (etymologically a ‘carrier of leaves’ or papers), portly [16], portmanteau, report, and transport. Also from portus comes English opportunity. From the same stem came Latin porta ‘gate, door’, which reached English via Old French porte as port ‘gate’ [13].
It came to be applied in the 14th century to an ‘opening in the side of a ship’, and it is now most commonly encountered in the compound porthole [16]. Portal [14] and portcullis are among its descendants. => fare, ferry, fiord, ford; deport, export, import, important, opportunity, portable, portly, report, transport; porch, portal, portcullis, porthole, portico
port (n.1)
"harbor," Old English port "harbor, haven," reinforced by Old French port "harbor, port; mountain pass;" Old English and Old French words both from Latin portus "port, harbor," originally "entrance, passage," figuratively "place of refuge, asylum," from PIE *prtu- "a going, a passage," from root *per- (2) "to lead, pass over" (cognates: Sanskrit parayati "carries over;" Greek poros "journey, passage, way," peirein "to pierce, run through;" Latin porta "gate, door," portare "passage," peritus "experienced;" Avestan peretush "passage, ford, bridge;" Armenian hordan "go forward;" Welsh rhyd "ford;" Old Church Slavonic pariti "to fly;" Old English faran "to go, journey," Old Norse fjörðr "inlet, estuary").
Meaning "left side of a ship" (looking forward from the stern) is attested from 1540s, from notion of "the side facing the harbor" (when a ship is docked). It replaced larboard in common usage to avoid confusion with starboard; officially so by Admiralty order of 1844 and U.S. Navy Department notice of 1846. Figurative sense "place of refuge" is attested from early 15c.; phrase any port in a storm first recorded 1749. A port of call (1810) is one paid a scheduled visit by a ship.
port (n.2)
"gateway," Old English port "portal, door, gate, entrance," from Old French porte "gate, entrance," from Latin porta "city gate, gate; door, entrance," from PIE root *per- (see port (n.1)). Specific meaning "porthole, opening in the side of a ship" is attested from c. 1300.
port (n.3)
"bearing, mien," c. 1300, from Old French port, from porter "to carry," from Latin portare (see port (n.1)).
port (n.4)
type of sweet dark-red wine, 1690s, shortened from Oporto, city in northwest Portugal from which the wine originally was shipped to England; from O Porto "the port;" (see port (n.1)).
port (v.)
"to carry," from Middle French porter, from Latin portare "to carry" (see port (n.1)). Related: Ported; porting.
双语例句
1. He asked for a glass of port after dinner.
晚饭后，他要了一杯波尔图葡萄酒。
来自柯林斯例句
2. They had asked Hong Kong for permission to put into port there.
他们请求香港允许他们在那里入港停留。
来自柯林斯例句
3. Captain David Clement and 150 commandos stormed the port this morning.
戴维·克莱门特上尉和150名突击队员今天早上对港口展开突袭。
来自柯林斯例句
4. When they first captured the port, they virtually cleaned out its warehouses.
他们刚占领港口时，把那里的仓库简直抢了个精光。
来自柯林斯例句
5. The trawler had sailed from the port of Zeebrugge.
