Porthole vs Pigeonhole - What's the difference?
porthole | pigeonhole |
A nook in a desk for holding papers.
One of an array of compartments for sorting post, messages etc. at an office, or college (for example).
A hole, or roosting place for pigeons.
Ancient Roman system of storage, used in libraries for keeping scrolls
To categorize; especially to limit or be limited to a particular category, role, etc.
* 1902 ,
To put aside, to not act on (proposals, suggestions, advice).
* 1910 , Angus Hamilton, Herbert Henry Austin, Masatake Terauchi, Korea: Its History, Its People, and Its Commerce ,
* 1917 , , November 1917 issue, The Looking Glass: Election laws in Southern California ,
* 2008 , Edward Sidlow, Beth Henschen, America at Odds , page 251
As nouns the difference between porthole and pigeonhole
is that porthole is a circular window set in the hull of a ship while pigeonhole is a nook in a desk for holding papers.As a verb pigeonhole is
to categorize; especially to limit or be limited to a particular category, role, etc.pigeonhole
English
(wikipedia pigeonhole)Alternative forms
* pigeon-hole * pigeon holeNoun
(en noun)- Fred was disappointed at the lack of post in his pigeonhole .
Verb
(pigeonhol)- Fred was tired of being pigeonholed as a computer geek.
- He prided himself on his largeness when he granted that there were three kinds of women... Not that he pigeon-holed Frona according to his inherited definitions.
page 294
- These laws were not carried into effect: they were pigeon-holed .
page 29
- [...] vociferously declared that they had the evidence. But no one prosecutes. No one swears out a warrant. The evidence is pigeonholed .
- Alternatively, the chairperson may decide to put the bill aside and ignore it. Most bills that are pigeonholed in this manner receive no further action.