Portcullis

Definition: Portcullis

Portcullis

Noun

1. Gate consisting of an iron or wooden grating that hangs in the entry to a castle or fortified town; can be lowered to prevent passage.

Date "portcullis" was first used: 13th century. (references)

Synonyms within Context: Portcullis

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Defense	Safeguard; (safety); balistraria; bunker, screen; (shelter); camouflage; (concealment); fortification; munition, muniment; trench, foxhole; bulwark, fosse, moat, ditch, entrenchment, intrenchment; kila; dike, dyke; parapet, sunk fence, embankment, mound, mole, bank, sandbag, revetment; earth work, field-work; fence, wall dead wall, contravallation; paling; (inclosure); palisade, haha, stockade, stoccado, laager, sangar; barrier, barricade; boom; portcullis, chevaux de frise; abatis, abattis, abbatis; vallum, circumvallation, battlement, rampart, scarp; escarp, counter-scarp; glacis, casemate; vallation, vanfos.
Hindrance	Turnstile, turnpike; gate, portcullis.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

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Specialty Definition: Portcullis

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The portcullis is the metal grille or gate which was part of the design of medieval castles, its purpose being to act as a last line of defence in time of attack. It could be raised or lowered.

The portcullis often appears as a device or emblem in heraldry.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Portcullis."

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Crosswords: Portcullis

English words defined with "portcullis": Herse ♦ Portcluse, Portcullised, Portcullising ♦ Sarrasine. (references)

Specialty definitions using "portcullis": Herald's College. (references)

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Commercial Usage: Portcullis

Domain	Title
Books	The portcullis room (reference) Who's the Prisoner of Portcullis Castle? (Solve It Yourself Series) (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Image Slideshow: Portcullis

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Usage Frequency: Portcullis

"Portcullis" is generally used as a noun (plural) -- approximately 75.86% of the time. "Portcullis" is used about 29 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (plural)	75.86%	22	74,468
Noun (proper)	10.34%	3	202,518
Noun (common)	10.34%	3	202,518
Lexical Verb (-s form)	3.45%	1	339,140
Total	100.00%	29	N/A

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Portcullis

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Expression	Frequency per Day
portcullis	10
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translation: Portcullis

Language		Translations for "portcullis"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		grilë me shufra hekuri. (various references)

Arabic		‏شعرية التحصين للحصن. (various references)

French		herse. (various references)

German		fallgatter. (various references)

Greek		κρεμαστή πύλη, σιδεριά (iron work). (various references)

Hungarian		hullórostély. (various references)

Italian		saracinesca (persian blind, rolling shutter). (various references)

Manx		grinney (gateway). (various references)

Pig Latin		ortcullispay

Portuguese		de suporte. (various references)

Russian		опускная решетка. (various references)

Scottish		eirc-chomhla. (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		rešetka (colander, grating, grid, gridiron, grill, grillage, grille, hatch, lattice, trap). (various references)

Spanish		rastrillo (rake). (various references)

Swedish		fällgaller. (various references)

Turkish		kale kapısı, demirli kale kapısı. (various references)

Ukrainian		опускні грати (cataract). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Ancestral Language Translations: Portcullis

Language	Period	Translations
Latin	500 BCE-Modern	colare. (various references)
Old French	900-1400	porte coleice. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Derivations & Misspellings: Portcullis

Derivations
	Words beginning with "portcullis": portcullises. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Portcullis" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Petrocelli, Porcellio, porticullis, potcullis, Proculus, torticollis. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Anagrams: Portcullis

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "c-i-l-l-o-p-r-s-t-u"
	-2 letters: culprits, sculptor.
	-3 letters: citrous, culprit, lictors, oculist, oilcups, pollist, slipout, troilus, tropics, upcoils.
	-4 letters: citrus, clours, clouts, coitus, corpus, coulis, courts, croups, cullis, curios, lictor, loculi, locust, oilcup, optics, picots, piculs, pilots, pilous, pistol, poilus, poults, prills, prosit, purist, rictus, ripost, rustic, script, scroll, sculpt, spoilt, sprout, stroll, stupor, suitor, toluic, topics, trills.
	Words containing the letters "c-i-l-l-o-p-r-s-t-u"
	+2 letters: portcullises.
	+5 letters: streptobacillus.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.