Other forms: portfolios
A portfolio is the flat case an artist carries drawings in, and then, by an easy step, the collection of work inside it. A photographer's twenty best pictures, an architecture student's folder of plans, a designer's website with six projects on the front page.
It moved into money without changing shape, so an investment portfolio is the spread of shares and funds somebody holds, and a fund manager talks about the portfolio all day long. Politics took it as well: a minister's portfolio is the area they answer for, as in the health portfolio, and a minister without portfolio sits in the cabinet with no department of their own. There is a portfolio career too, which means several part-time jobs held at once instead of one full-time post. The physical case has almost disappeared, and what survives is the idea underneath it: things kept together and shown as a set.
1nounportfolioA set of work someone has done, gathered to show what they can do.
“She brought a portfolio of wedding photographs to the meeting.”
synonyms: collection
2nounflatA flat case for carrying loose drawings, plans or papers.
“He carried a black portfolio under one arm all the way across town.”
3nounrangeThe range of investments held by a person or a fund.
“Half his portfolio is in government bonds.”
4nounareaThe area of government a minister is responsible for.
“She was given the transport portfolio after the election.”
portfolio is a collection kept together.
Portfolio is the Italian portafoglio, built from Latin portare, to carry, and folium, a sheet, so the word means something like carry-the-sheets. French made the same compound as portefeuille, a folder or wallet. The sense of a set of responsibilities came by extension in the 1930s, long after anybody needed a case to carry loose paper in.
Italian
portafoglio
English, today
portfolio
From Italian portafoglio; cognate with French portefeuille (“folder, wallet”), from Latin portāre (“to carry”) and folium (“sheet”). The meaning "collection of responsibilities" came by extension in the 1930s.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Work & Careers, A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 2 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word