portass
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English porthors, from Old French porte-hors (“a kind of portable prayer-book”).
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
portass (plural portasses)
- (obsolete, Early Modern) A breviary; a prayer book.
- 1605, M. N. [pseudonym; William Camden], Remaines of a Greater Worke, Concerning Britaine, […], London: […] G[eorge] E[ld] for Simon Waterson, →OCLC:
- an old Priest in that age, which always read in his Portass, Mumpsimus Domine for Sumpsimus; whereof when he was admonished, he said that he now had used Mumpsimus thirty years, and would not leave his old Mumpsimus for their new Sumpsimus.
- 1545, John Bale, The Image of Both Churches:
- Their portases, bedes, temples, aultars.
- 1553, [unknown translator], Stephen Gardiner, De vera obedientia:
- Boner hath set up again in Paules Salesburi Latin portace.
- 1565, Robert Wever, An Enterlude called lusty Juventus:
- Let me see your portous, gentle sir John.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “(please specify the book)”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- In his hand his portesse still he bare, That much was worn, but therein little red; For of devotion he had little care.
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “portass”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)