Portly means rather fat, said politely of a man. A portly gentleman, growing portly, portly and cheerful.
It is a euphemism and a kindly one, and it is used of men and effectively never of women. It once meant stately and dignified — port in that old sense meant bearing or deportment, and the word slid from carrying yourself well to carrying rather a lot.
1adjectiveportlyRather fat, said politely of a man.
“A portly gentleman in a tweed jacket took the seat beside me.”
synonyms: stout, corpulent
portly is a quality of build.
Port, in an old sense meaning bearing or deportment, plus -ly. The word first meant stately.
Old English
port
English
port
English, today
portly
From an archaic sense of port + -ly. port comes from Old English port. From Old English port, borrowed from Latin portus (“port, harbour”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European pértus (“crossing”) (and thus a distant doublet of a doublet of ford). The directional sense, attested since at least the 1500s, derives from ancient vessels with the steering oar on the right (see etymology of starboard), which therefore had to moor with their left sides facing the dock or wharf. a doublet of fjard and fjord and firth and ford and Portus.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA