Other forms: portals
A portal is a grand doorway. The cathedral portal, a carved portal, through the portal.
It is the architectural word for an important entrance, usually decorated. In fantasy and science fiction, a portal is a magical or technological doorway between places or worlds — a portal opened, portal fantasy. In computing, a portal is a website that acts as an entrance to a system: a customer portal, the staff portal, which is now the commonest use of the word in ordinary working life.
1nounportalA grand doorway.
“Visitors enter the cathedral through a great carved portal.”
2nounwebsiteA website giving access to a system.
“Everything goes through the staff portal, which is down again.”
portal is an entrance.
Medieval Latin portale comes from porta, a gate — the same root as port, porch and portico. A port is a gateway to a country, which is why the word covers harbours and doorways alike.
Proto-Indo-European
*per- (fare)
Medieval Latin
portāle
Old French
portal
Middle English
portal
English, today
portal
From Middle English portal, porttol, from Old French portal and Medieval Latin portāle, from porta.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Word Building