Portal

How to spell portal

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce portal

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does portal mean?

1. nounA grand or imposing doorway, gate, or entrance.
2. nounA website or online system that serves as a single point of access to many services or resources.

Portal in a sentence

• The cathedral's carved stone portal towered over the visitors.

• Staff log their hours through the company's online portal.

• A wrought-iron portal marked the entrance to the old estate.

• The university launched a student portal for grades and timetables.

Where does portal come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Portal comes from the Latin porta, meaning simply 'a gate' or 'a door', the same root that gives us 'port' (a harbour where ships gate in and out) and 'porch'. In medieval Latin this became portale, used for a grand or imposing doorway, especially the ornate main entrance of a cathedral or castle. English borrowed it through Old French portal in the fourteenth century, keeping the sense of a stately, often arched gateway rather than an ordinary door. For centuries it stayed a literary and architectural word, but in the late twentieth century it was revived for computing, where a portal is a website that acts as a single gateway into many services. The spelling stays close to its Latin parent, so remembering the family 'port', 'porter', 'import' helps fix the single 't' and the -al ending.

How the word is built

• port- (from Latin porta: gate, door)
• -al (noun suffix forming 'pertaining to a gate')