portico

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian portico,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} recorded in Italian from before 1292,^[2] from Latin porticus (“colonnade, arcade, covered walk, porch”),^[2][4][5] from porta (“gate”),^[4][5][3][7] from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to lead, pass over”).^[4][3] Klein instead derives the Latin noun from portus (“entrance, harbour”).^[8] The OED compares Spanish pórtico and Portuguese pórtico, and the earlier English portic.^[2] Porch is a doublet, from the same Latin noun through Old French,^[5][8][7] and the Latin was also borrowed directly into Old English as portic.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The colonnade in the agora of ancient Athens, where the Stoic philosophers met, and hence the Stoic school: 1579, in T. Salter's Mirrhor of Modestie.^[2] The architectural sense is first recorded in Ben Jonson's Volpone, dated 1605 by Barnhart and 1607 by the OED and Merriam-Webster.^[5][2][9] Etymonline gives about 1600, and Dictionary.com 1595–1605.^[4][10]

Semantic evolution

The first English record concerns the colonnade at Athens, the resort of Zeno,^[2][11] and between 1761 and 1847, starting with Sterne, the word could stand allusively for any place of philosophical study or learning.^[2] The sense of a columned entrance to a temple, church or other building follows from 1607,^[2][12] and Johnson (1755) defined the word simply as "a covered walk; a piazza".^[13] From 1666, in Evelyn, to 1810 it could also mean a pergola in a garden,^[2] and figurative and extended uses are recorded from 1660.^[2] The Shorter Oxford quotes Thomson's "verdant portico of woods".^[12]

Timeline

• 1579 – the colonnade at Athens where the Stoics met.^[2]
• 1607 – a columned entrance to a building.^[2][9] Barnhart dates this use to 1605.^[5]
• 1660 – figurative and extended use.^[2]
• 1666 – a pergola in a garden (obsolete by 1810).^[2]
• 1761 – a place of philosophical study or learning (obsolete by 1847).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A porch or walkway whose roof is held up by columns, often at the entrance of a building, especially in classical architecture: The guests waited under the portico until the rain stopped.^{[3][14][9][2]} The plural is porticoes or porticos.^[3][14][9]
2. the Portico: the colonnade at Athens where the Stoic philosophers met; hence their school.^[2][12][4]

Word family

• porticoed

Related words

• portcullis
• porch
• port
• porthole
• ford

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins