portico
Americannoun
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porticoes,
plural
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porticos
plural
noun
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a covered entrance to a building; porch
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a covered walkway in the form of a roof supported by columns or pillars, esp one built on to the exterior of a building
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of portico
1595–1605; < Italian < Latin porticus porch, portico. See port 4
Explanation
If your host suggests that you take your iced tea out to the portico, you can follow him onto the porch. A portico is a front porch with columns. If you've ever seen pictures of the United States Capitol building or the Pantheon in Rome, you've seen a portico. While a porch that is held up with grand columns is a portico, a longer covered area or walkway with columns is called a colonnade. The root of portico, is simply the Latin word for "porch," porticus.
Vocabulary lists containing portico
Built To Last: Architectural Parlance
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The Lightning Thief
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Ancient Greece - Middle School and High School
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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:
The portico was self-contained; at the press of a button Colin turned it into a prison cell.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026
Bulletproof glass encasing the portico for his annual appearance with the Easter Bunny?
From Slate ● Apr. 28, 2026
Paper lanterns were laid across the courtyard, as they had been at a public viewing of Armani's body in Milan earlier this month, with the models walking under the portico.
From BBC ● Sep. 29, 2025
Trump finally appeared on the portico of the Blue Room after 7 p.m. on Wednesday to welcome new interns to what the White House described as a “soiree” on the South Lawn.
From Salon ● Jun. 5, 2025
At one corner of the crossroads stood the most impressive building—a two-story wedge of white marble with a columned portico like an old-fashioned bank.
From "The Son of Neptune" by Rick Riordan
Its White City—a temporary demonstration of the grandeur of classical architecture, with Greek and Roman-style colonnades and porticoes arranged around a lake—had been designed by America’s greatest architects.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 23, 2026
There, we spent half a day strolling the vertiginous gardens and arched porticoes of the Alcazaba of Málaga.
From New York Times ● Aug. 30, 2022
Back in Trinidad, we park on a quiet street of red-tiled rooftops and shuttered porticoes, where we’ll sleep later.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 24, 2018
Surrounded by columns, fountains, porticoes and an outdoor fireplace, it feels more like the Mediterranean than St. Louis.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 13, 2018
Columned porticoes faced the central atrium, which had a huge fountain and bronze braziers.
From "Blood of Olympus" by Rick Riordan
Washington is a city obsessed with projecting power through stone, and littered with overinflated federal buildings of white marble dressed up with colonnades, pediments and porticos.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
The entire city is filled with beautiful archways and pillars and covered porticos.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 18, 2022
At Bard, the weather drove us inside and out, from his office to benches and tables and porticos.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 26, 2022
We could tell it was Federal style by the symmetrical design with porticos supported by Ionic columns, fanlights over the doors and keystone lintels.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 5, 2021
Clinging to the mountainside were dozens of multileveled palaces—a city of mansions—all with white-columned porticos, gilded terraces, and bronze braziers glowing with a thousand fires.
From "The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan
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.
