porte
/pˈɔɹt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.13 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
The Ottoman court; (hence), the government of the Ottoman empire.
Example Sentences
- "Another odd Combination: 'tis now confidently asserted that the Ottoman Porte enters into a League offensive & defensive with France […]."
- "A hired diplomat in Edirne and to the Porte in Constantinople, a military commander in the Austro-Turkish wars, a polyhistor and a learned man."
- "The Ottoman defenders in Edirne (ancient Adrianople, a city in modern Turkey near Greece and Bulgaria) were left surrounded and under siege when the Porte sued for an armistice in early December 1912."
Etymology
From Middle French porte (“gate”), ultimately after Ottoman Turkish باب عالی (Bâb-ı Âli, “Exalted Gate”), from Arabic بَاب (bāb, “gate”) and عَالِيّ (ʕāliyy, “high, exalted”), a synecdoche for the Ottoman government originally referring to the outer gate of the sultan's Topkapı palace at which justice was administered, and later to the gate of the palace of the grand vizier.
Word Breakdown
- Root: باب عالی
Inflected Forms
Ottoman Porte (alternative)
Sublime Porte (alternative)