porter
Other forms: porters; portering; portered
A porter is someone who carries luggage for tourists. If you ever travel by train across the country, you'll be grateful to the porter.
The person at an airport, train station, or hotel who's paid to help with your luggage is a porter. It's also the name of a train employee who assists passengers traveling in sleeper cars. The word porter comes from the Latin portatorem, one who carries. The dark, sweet beer known as porter or porter's ale comes from the same root word — because its taste and low price was the favorite of porters and other laborers.
-
a person employed to carry luggage and supplies
-
a railroad employee who assists passengers (especially on sleeping cars)synonyms: Pullman portertype of:employeea worker who is hired to perform a job
-
carry luggage or supplies
-
a very dark sweet ale brewed from roasted unmalted barleysynonyms: porter's beertype of:alea general name for beer made with a top fermenting yeast; in some of the United States an ale is (by law) a brew of more than 4% alcohol by volume
-
someone who guards an entrancesynonyms: door guard, doorkeeper, doorman, gatekeeper, hall porter, ostiarytype of:guarda person who keeps watch over something or someone
- MLA
- APA
- Chicago
Vocabulary lists containing porter
While on the road, Billy Weaver stops at a quaint bed and breakfast—but the old landlady isn't what she seems. Here is a link to our lists for Boy: Tales of Childhood by Roald Dahl.
During the Great Depression, a ten-year-old boy hits the road in search of the father he has never known.
Here's a roundup of some common last names that originated in professions, trades, and other jobs — along with some notable people who bear them. If you have one of these last names, it's possible that one of your ancestors did this kind of work for a living.