Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A female porter or keeper of a gate.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun See portress.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Alternative form of portress.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • We have spoken of the admirable way in which Mr. Cruikshank has depicted Irish character and Cockney character; English country character is quite as faithfully delineated in the person of the stout porteress and her children, and of the

    George Cruikshank 2006

  • She became the porteress of the abode which the other had prepared with such lavish attention and expenditure, to serve him only as a pall.

    Balzac 2003

  • She became the porteress of the abode which the other had prepared with such lavish attention and expenditure, to serve him only as a pall.

    Balzac Frederick Lawton

  • The porteress that let him in, and afterwards seeing him at the fire, first put the question to him; and then positively affirmed that he was with Christ.

    The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete The Challoner Revision Anonymous

  • The porteress that let him in, and afterwards seeing him at the fire, first put the question to him; and then positively affirmed that he was with Christ.

    The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Book 49: Luke The Challoner Revision

  • The porteress that let him in, and afterwards seeing him at the fire, first put the question to him; and then positively affirmed that he was with Christ.

    The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete Anonymous

  • Old Jocunda, the porteress, never failed to make a sensation with her one stock-story of how she found the child standing on her head and crying, -- having been put into this reversed position in consequence of climbing up on a high stool to get her little fat hand into the vase of holy water, failing in which Christian attempt, her heels went up and her head down, greatly to her dismay.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 43, May, 1861 Creator Various

  • Rémy had sent for the box-keeper to the Rue de Provence, close to the Opera, where she was engaged as a porteress.

    The Phantom of the Opera 1911

  • She became the porteress of the abode which the other had prepared with such lavish attention and expenditure, to serve him only as a pall.

    Balzac Lawton, Frederick 1910

  • At the door in the high white wall of the school-garden, he asked an unveiled crone of a porteress to say merely that two gentlemen had called.

    The Golden Silence 1901

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