From WordNet (r) 2.0 (August 2003) [wn]:
portal
n 1: a grand and imposing entrance (often extended
metaphorically); "the portals of the cathedral"; "the
portals of heaven"; "the portals of success"
2: a site that the owner positions as an entrance to other
sites on the internet; "a portal typically has search
engines and free email and chat rooms etc." [syn: {portal
site}]
3: a short vein that carries blood into the liver [syn: {portal
vein}, hepatic portal vein, vena portae]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Portal \Por"tal\, a. (Anat.)
Of or pertaining to a porta, especially the porta of the
liver; as, the portal vein, which enters the liver at the
porta, and divides into capillaries after the manner of an
artery.
[1913 Webster]
Note: Portal is applied to other veins which break up into
capillaries; as, the renal portal veins in the frog.
[1913 Webster]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Portal \Por"tal\, n. [OF. portal, F. portail, LL. portale, fr.
L. porta a gate. See Port a gate.]
1. A door or gate; hence, a way of entrance or exit,
especially one that is grand and imposing.
[1913 Webster]
Thick with sparkling orient gems
The portal shone. --Milton.
[1913 Webster]
From out the fiery portal of the east. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
2. (Arch.)
(a) The lesser gate, where there are two of different
dimensions.
(b) Formerly, a small square corner in a room separated
from the rest of the apartment by wainscoting, forming
a short passage to another apartment.
(c) By analogy with the French portail, used by recent
writers for the whole architectural composition which
surrounds and includes the doorways and porches of a
church.
[1913 Webster]
3. (Bridge Building) The space, at one end, between opposite
trusses when these are terminated by inclined braces.
[1913 Webster]
4. A prayer book or breviary; a portass. [Obs.]
[1913 Webster]
Portal bracing (Bridge Building), a combination of struts
and ties which lie in the plane of the inclined braces at
a portal, serving to transfer wind pressure from the upper
parts of the trusses to an abutment or pier of the bridge.
[1913 Webster]
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (19 Sep 2003) [foldoc]:
portal
<World-Wide Web> A web site that aims to be an entry point
to the World-Wide Web, typically offering a search engine
and/or links to useful pages, and possibly news or other
services. These services are usually provided for free in the
hope that users will make the site their default home page
or at least visit it often. Popular examples are Yahoo and
MSN. Most portals on the Internet exist to generate
advertising income for their owners, others may be focused on
a specific group of users and may be part of an intranet or
extranet. Some may just concentrate on one particular
subject, say technology or medicine, and are known as a
vertical portals.
(2001-07-07)
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (19 Sep 2003) [foldoc]:
PORTAL
Process-Oriented Real-Time Algorithmic Language.
["PORTAL - A Pascal-based Real-Time Programming Language",
R. Schild in Algorithmic Languages, J.W. deBakker et al eds,
N-H 1981].