portage
portage Lexical Profile
portage Game Scores & Validity
• noun
The act or practice of carrying a boat or its cargo overland between two navigable bodies of water, or around an obstacle such as rapids or a waterfall.
"The exhausted paddlers prepared for a grueling two-mile portage around the roaring rapids."
A trail, path, or overland route across which boats and supplies are carried from one body of water to another.
"The historical map marked a narrow portage connecting the upper river to the glacial lake."
The labor of transporting goods or the fee charged for such carriage.
"The merchant guild calculated the total cost of portage before shipping the timber inland."
• verb
To carry a boat or its cargo overland between navigable waters or around an unnavigable obstruction.
"We had to portage our canoes across a rocky ridge to reach the next chain of lakes."
To travel overland while carrying boats and supplies along a route between navigable waterways.
"The expedition portaged around the treacherous waterfall before setting their kayaks back into the current."
• Rhymes for portage
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed from Old French portage, meaning 'the act of carrying or a toll for carriage', from the verb porter ('to carry'), which traces back to Latin portare ('to carry'). The sense specific to carrying canoes overland between bodies of water developed in 17th-century Canadian French among fur traders and voyageurs.