The AI-powered English dictionary
plural porters
A person who carries luggage and related objects. quotations examples
Tips were an important part of porters' income, and at Christmas passengers felt there was extra pressure to give them - despite some perceiving the level of service to be poor. […] In contrast, the Westminster Gazette in 1912 was much more positive about railway staff, praising the "...army of porters hustling and bustling hither and thither with barrows groaning under the weight of bags and baggage and... the ever-patient and long-suffering guards, courteously giving information and advice to the querulous passengers... to the porter the Christmas season means a continuous round of heavy labour, extremely tiring to both nerves and temper, and this fact the public too often seem either to forget or ignore."
2022 December 14, David Turner, “The Edwardian Christmas getaway...”, in RAIL, number 972, page 35
(entomology) An ant having the specialized role of carrying.
(computing) One who ports software (makes it usable on another platform). quotations examples
[…] useful only if you are a Perl porter or implementor and you want to check the efficiency of the hashing algorithm.
1998, Michael McMillan, Perl from the Ground Up, page 45
countable and uncountable, plural porters
(countable) A person in control of the entrance to a building. examples
(countable, bowling) An employee who clears and cleans tables and puts bowling balls away. examples
(countable, uncountable, beer) A strong, dark ale, originally favored by porters (etymology 1, sense 1), similar to a stout but less strong. examples
(beer, Ireland) Stout (malt brew). quotations examples
“Here, Pat, give us a g.p., like a good fellow.” The curate brought him a glass of plain porter. The man drank it at a gulp and asked for a caraway seed.
1914 June, James Joyce, “Counterparts”, in Dubliners, London: Grant Richards, page 107
third-person singular simple present porters, present participle portering, simple past and past participle portered
To serve as a porter; to carry. examples