Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A porch or walkway with a roof supported by columns, often leading to the entrance of a building.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun 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.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Arch.) A colonnade or covered ambulatory, especially in classical styles of architecture; usually, a colonnade at the entrance of a building.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
porch , or a small space with aroof supported bycolumns , serving as theentrance to abuilding .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a porch or entrance to a building consisting of a covered and often columned area
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Behind the portico was a covered walkway leading to the villa itself.
Alector's Choice Modesitt, L. E. 2005
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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.
Travels in Nubia 2004
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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.
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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.
Interactive Dig Sagalassos - N-S Colonnaded Street Report 1 2003
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The form of a portico is the arrangement of its columns; the form of a melody is the order of sounds.
Dictionary of the History of Ideas W. TATARKIEWICZ 1968
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The portico, which is of massive dimensions, is approached by a commanding flight of granite steps, which runs round three sides of it.
A Winter Tour in South Africa Frederick Young
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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 Ethel T. Raymond
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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.
Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. Thomas Forester
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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.
George Washington: Farmer Paul Leland Haworth
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At each end of the portico is a small cabinet, with appropriate paintings: in one of them a painting of Venus, Mars, and
ofravens commented on the word portico
Through portico of my elegant house you stalk
With your wild furies, disturbing garlands of fruit
from "Conversation Among the Ruins," Sylvia Plath
March 26, 2008
pikachu commented on the word portico
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
March 9, 2011