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por·ter¹

(pôrtər)

1. A person employed to carry burdens, especially an attendant who carries travelers' baggage at a hotel or transportation station.

2. A railroad employee who waits on passengers in a sleeping car or parlor car.

3. A maintenance worker for a building or institution.

[Middle English portour, from Anglo-Norman, from Late Latin portātor, from Latin portāre, to carry; see per-² in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.]

por·ter²

(pôrtər)

n.
Chiefly British

One in charge of a gate or door.

[Middle English, from Anglo-Norman, from Late Latin portārius, from Latin porta, gate; see per-² in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.]

por·ter ³

(pôrtər)

A dark beer resembling light stout, made from malt browned or charred by drying at a high temperature.

[Short for porter's ale (probably so called because it was favored by laborers in the 1700s).]

Porter, William Sydney Pen name O. Henry 1862-1910.

American writer whose short stories, noted for their often surprising endings, are collected in such volumes as Cabbages and Kings (1904) and The Four Million (1906).

Porter, Rodney Robert 1917-1985.

British biochemist. He shared a 1972 Nobel Prize for research on the molecular structure of antibodies.

Porter, Katherine Anne 1890-1980.

American writer known for her carefully crafted short stories as well as her novel Ship of Fools (1962). She won a Pulitzer Prize for her Collected Stories (1965).

Porter, Edwin Stanton 1869-1941.

American filmmaker whose The Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery (both 1903) were among the first effectively edited films.

Por·ter

(pôrtər), Cole Albert 1891-1964.

American composer and lyricist remembered for his witty and sophisticated Broadway scores for musicals such as Anything Goes (1934).

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

Indo-European Roots

Semitic Roots

The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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