Noun

(en noun)

A grandiose and often lavish entrance.

* Milton

Thick with sparkling orient gems / The portal shone.

An entrance, entry point, or means of entry.

The local library, a portal of knowledge.

(Internet) A website that acts as an entrance to other websites on the Internet.

The new medical portal has dozens of topical categories containing links to hundreds of sites.

(anatomy) A short vein that carries blood into the liver.

(fiction) A magical or technological leading to another location, period in time or dimension.

(architecture) A lesser gate, where there are two of different dimensions.

(architecture) Formerly, a small square corner in a room separated from the rest of an apartment by wainscoting, forming a short passage to another apartment.

(bridge-building) The space, at one end, between opposite trusses when these are terminated by inclined braces.

A prayer book or breviary; a portass.

Noun

(balconies)

An accessible structure extending from a building, especially outside a window.

(Shakespeare)

(the Bible)

An accessible structure overlooking a stage or the like.

*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)

, title=(The China Governess) , chapter=3 citation , passage=Sepia Delft tiles surrounded the fireplace, their crudely drawn Biblical scenes in faded cyclamen blending with the pinkish pine, while above them, instead of a mantelshelf, there was an archway high enough to form a balcony with slender balusters and a tapestry-hung wall behind.}}