portage
noun
the act of carrying; carriage.
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:
Reaching the final stretch of the portage, the group trudged past the power plant and its massive pipelines coming down the mountainside.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 6, 2025
This was an important historical spot for the Coast Salish peoples as a canoe portage between Lake Washington and Lake Union, before the Montlake Cut was dug to unite the two water bodies.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 3, 2023
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
There they removed it gingerly from the water, inverted it over their heads, and began a mile-and-a-half portage across Seattle.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
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
In Manitoba, 550 people were evacuated in the north-west of the province due to a wildfire that started on Thursday near the community of Cranberry Portage.
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
Superior National Forest officials had closed trails, campsites, portages and bodies of water in the area, to assist in the search.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 3, 2024
From life at sea, he had acquired the habit of rising early; from the rivers and countless portages, the conviction that one does not own what one cannot carry.
From New York Times ● Sep. 12, 2018
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
Mr. Reed tells students they have to interview someone—a mother or father or grandparent—about their own portages, the moments in their lives when they’ve had to take a journey, literal or metaphorical.
From "Orphan Train" by Christina Baker Kline
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
In his seminal book, The Emerald Mile, author Kevin Fedarko estimated the crew ran 414 rapids and portaged or lined the boats through another hundred or so.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 17, 2021
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
They went to Fond du Lac, thence up the St. Louis river, portaged round the falls, thence to the nearest point to Sandy lake, thence up the Mississippi to Leech lake.
From The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier by Charles E. (Charles Eugene) Flandrau
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
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