portage

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English portage,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman portage (“action of carrying”), also borrowed from Middle French portage,^[4][5][6] formed from porter (“to carry”) and the suffix -age,^[4][5][6] the verb being from Latin portō (“to carry”).^[3][5][7] Etymonline and the Middle English Dictionary add Medieval Latin portāticum or portāgium as a second source;^[8][2] the OED compares these post-classical Latin words, used for harbour dues and town tolls from the 7th century and for the transport of goods and a ship's capacity in British documents from the 13th and 14th.^[4] In Old French the noun is recorded from about 1250.^[4] The sense of carrying boats overland was borrowed again from French:^[4] French had it by 1694,^[4] and Etymonline and Weekley point to Canadian French.^[8][9] Etymonline traces the Latin verb to Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to lead, pass over”).^[8][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Space or weight on board a ship allowed to a sailor for his own cargo instead of wages, in the phrase mariner's portage: about 1400, in the Lawys of Schippis.^[4] The sense "carrying, transport" follows in 1423, in a London document,^[4][5][2] although the 1989 edition of the OED had dated it to 1252.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The Middle English word belonged to trade and shipping: it meant carrying, the carrying capacity of a ship, the cargo itself and the cost of transport.^[2][4] The senses of tonnage (1436–1710), cargo (1445–1809) and freight or postal charge (1472–1860) have all died out,^[4] and Johnson (1755) still gave "the price of carriage" as the first sense.^[11] The modern sense, the carrying of boats and goods from one waterway to another or round rapids and falls, appears in 1698, in a translation of Hennepin's account of America, together with the sense of the route itself;^[4][12] the OED labels it originally and chiefly North American,^[4] and the Oxford Dictionary of English dates it to the late 17th century.^[13] The verb, to carry boats or goods over such a route, is recorded from 1836;^[4][6] the 1989 edition of the OED had dated it to 1864.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – mariner's portage, a sailor's allowance of cargo space instead of wages.^[4]
• 1423 – the action or work of carrying goods; transport.^[4][5][2]
• 1436 – the tonnage of a ship (obsolete by 1710).^[4]
• 1445 – cargo, freight, baggage (obsolete by 1809).^[4]
• 1472 – the cost of carriage; a freight charge or toll on goods (obsolete by 1860).^[4]
• 1698 – the carrying of boats and goods between navigable waters, and the route used for it.^[4][12] Etymonline dates it to the 1690s.^[8]
• 1836 – verb, to carry boats or goods overland between waters.^[4][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. The carrying of boats and supplies overland from one waterway to another, or around rapids or a waterfall: The canoeists faced a long portage around the falls.^[6][14][4]
2. The route or track used for such carrying.^[14][4]
3. The act or labour of carrying or transporting something; transport.^[14][6][4]
4. (archaic) The cost of carrying goods; porterage.^[6][14]
5. (obsolete, 1436–1710) The tonnage of a ship.^[6][4]
6. (obsolete, 1445–1809) Cargo or freight.^[6][4]
7. (obsolete) Cargo space or goods that a sailor was allowed to carry for himself instead of wages.^[6][4]

Verb

1. To carry boats or goods overland between waterways: We portaged the canoe past the dam.^[6][4]
2. To make a portage; to travel overland with boats between waters.^[6][15]

Related words

• porter
• port
• porterage
• transport
• portable
• portledge

Usage notes

The waterway sense is often said with French stress, /pɔːˈtɑːʒ/, beside the anglicized /ˈpɔːtɪdʒ/.^[4][15] Johnson and the OED also record a separate noun portage, formed from port in the sense of a porthole, used only by Shakespeare in Henry V ("Let it pry through the portage of the head, Like the brass cannon").^[11][4][15]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
13. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press