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porter

Pronunciation: /ˈpɔɹtɚ/

The English word “porter” has 8 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A person who carries luggage and related objects; (historically) one who carried luggage or did manual labour in the transloading of cargo.
  2. An ant having the specialized role of carrying.
  3. One who ports software (makes it usable on another platform).
  4. A person in control of the entrance to a building.
  5. An employee who clears and cleans tables and puts bowling balls away.
  6. A strong, dark ale, originally favored by porters (etymology 1, sense 1), similar to a stout but less strong.
  7. Stout (malt brew).

verb

  1. To serve as a porter; to carry.

Etymology

From Middle English porter, portere, portier, borrowed from Anglo-Norman portour and Old French porteor, from Late Latin portātor, from past participle of Latin portāre (“to carry”). By surface analysis, port (“to carry”) + -er.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.