portage
noun
the act of carrying; carriage.
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portage
1 American
[pawr-tij, pohr-, pawr-tahzh]
/ ˈpɔr tɪdʒ, ˈpoʊr-, pɔrˈtɑʒ /
noun
portages
plural
-
the act of carrying; carriage.
-
the carrying of boats, goods, etc., overland from one navigable water to another.
-
the route over which this is done.
-
the cost of carriage.
verb (used without object)
portages,
present (3rd person singular)
portaged,
past participle, past
portaging
present participle
verb (used with object)
portages,
present (3rd person singular)
portaged,
past participle, past
portaging
present participle
Portage
2
American
[pawr-tij, pohr-]
/ ˈpɔr tɪdʒ, ˈpoʊr- /
noun
-
a city in SW Michigan.
-
a town in NW Indiana.
portage
British
/ pɔrtaʒ, ˈpɔːtɪdʒ /
noun
-
the act of carrying; transport
-
the cost of carrying or transporting
-
the act or process of transporting boats, supplies, etc, overland between navigable waterways
-
the route overland used for such transport
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
portagesimple
-
portagessimple
-
have portagedperfect
-
has portagedperfect
-
am portagingprogressive
-
are portagingprogressive
-
is portagingprogressive
-
have been portagingperfect progressive
-
has been portagingperfect progressive
Past
-
portagedsimple
-
had portagedperfect
-
was portagingprogressive
-
were portagingprogressive
-
had been portagingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of portage
1375–1425; late Middle English < Middle French; see port 5, -age
Explanation
Portage is a payment, usually to the captain or owner of a boat, for carrying cargo. A portage is also a bridge between two waterways. A business that sells goods to many parts of the world will probably pay portage at some point: a fee to a boat for carrying cargo. This is a bit of an old-fashioned word, and it mainly applies to boats (which you can remember from the word port: a place where boats dock). Also, a portage is a bridge-like track built on land that links waterways such as rivers. The purpose of that portage is also to transport goods.
Vocabulary lists containing portage
Tolkien Reading Day, List 5
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The Boys in the Boat
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Orphan Train
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“With a barge, if you have a closure at a lock and dam it is not like canoeing or kayaking where you can portage around the obstacle. River transit will close,” he said.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 19, 2022
If you don’t need quite as much power and portage, Satechi sells a 66W three USB-C port charger for $55.
From The Verge ● Jan. 7, 2022
Where it couldn’t, I accepted a nudge, or even in the case of a then-crumbling Saugus River footbridge, a brief portage.
From New York Times ● Jul. 7, 2021
The Indian Agency House was built along the portage route between the Fox and Wisconsin rivers in 1832 to house agent John H. Kinzie and his wife, Juliette.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 1, 2020
That meant there had also been one long portage after another, eating up hours of their time.
From "Death on the River of Doubt" by Samantha Seiple
Marlyn Castner, 71, who moved down from Portage, Mich., and bought a condo in 2022, said she considers such sights eyesores, along with recreational vehicles parked in yards.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
Residents in Portage County were “surprised and fearful” after Zuchowski's latest post, The Portager reported.
From Salon ● Sep. 16, 2024
The blaze in Cranberry Portage is believed to have started after a lightning strike, CBC News, external reported.
From BBC ● May 14, 2024
When he estimates where the risk of an Alaskan lake tsunami is highest, Portage Lake "is pretty much at the top of my list," Higman said.
From Science Daily ● May 6, 2024
On long, lazy weekend afternoons, afternoons when the air was translucent and still and full of the smell of burning leaves, they rented canoes again and paddled around in Portage Bay.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
Exploiting a series of portages linking Lake Michigan and local rivers, they paddled their canoes from Canada’s Atlantic shore to the Gulf of Mexico and as far west as the Rocky Mountains.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2025
The wilderness stopped issuing entry permits, closing all land, water, trails, portages, campsites, canoe routes and entry points until Aug. 27.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 22, 2021
There was one industry that the new city would excel in, which did not require ships, portages, or much labor at all.
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 19, 2017
Escaping civilization means lugging your gear — canoe on shoulders, gear on back, feet on trail — across dozens of winding portages between lakes.
From New York Times ● Oct. 21, 2016
“The frequent bad rapids making so many portages necessary. Our position every day grows more serious; the food supply less.”
From "Death on the River of Doubt" by Samantha Seiple
Recognizing that he could rise no higher in Kiev, this ambitious, natural-born commander sailed and portaged down the river Dnieper, then crossed the Black Sea to Miklagard, the Big City, as the Scandinavians called Constantinople.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 21, 2021
Joined there by the Beauchamps, they kayaked through some “dangerous waters,” dealt with 15 logjams and portaged over the Roush Lake Dam in Huntington.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 18, 2017
Paul found a campsite on a rocky point and we dropped our gear and portaged into Argo Lake for a scenic four-mile loop.
From New York Times ● Oct. 21, 2016
They portaged about 15-20 yards and then paddled through a stretch of flooded timber.
From Washington Times ● Feb. 21, 2016
Another reported in 1797—the Washington—built at Erie, Pa., was bought by Canadians, portaged around the Falls and run on the British register from Queenston to Kingston as the Lady Washington.
From A Century of Sail and Steam on the Niagara River by Cumberland, Barlow
All went well up to day 13 of 16, when the group of rafters approached Lava Falls, “the gnarliest rapid I’ve ever navigated” and one you can’t avoid by portaging.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 2023
“We were portaging, and Wynn said to me, ‘I can’t make it,’ ” he recalled.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 26, 2022
At any rate, traveling by kayak means always having the option of simply taking to land and portaging everything into a better channel.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 18, 2022
All day on Friday, workmen made this fifteen-minute trek, portaging necessities for the evening: armfuls of peonies, sewing machines swathed in muslin, inscrutable spiky objects in gold.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 21, 2015
Tiller and Florida had traveled the length of Hidden River and had spent the last two hours portaging into the Goochee River.
From "Ruby Holler" by Sharon Creech
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
