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.
Thick with sparkling orient gems
The portal shone.
Milton.
From out the fiery portal of the east.
Shak.
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.
3. Bridge Building
The space, at one end, between opposite trusses when these are terminated by inclined braces.
4.
A prayer book or breviary; a portass.
[Obs.]
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.
© Webster 1913.
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.
⇒ Portal is applied to other veins which break up into capillaries; as, the renal portal veins in the frog.
© Webster 1913.