portass means A breviary; a prayer book. It carries an Arena rating of 1372, earned across 9 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, portass ranks #1,442 of 13,276 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #1,468 of 13,276 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #2,597 of 13,276 for Most Whimsical Words, #4,531 of 13,276 for Funniest Words.
portass is pronounced /ˈpɔː(ɹ)təs/.
Why “portass” is a great word
A portable prayer book or breviary, especially one for private devotion. Its name is from the Old French *porte-hors*, meaning "carry-outdoors," a literal instruction to take its sanctity beyond the church walls. Unlike a "breviary" (the official, often bulky, liturgical compendium) or a "missal" (which contains the texts for the Mass), a portass is the personal, itinerant companion of faith. It is the worn leather binding tucked inside a traveler's cloak, the faint gloss of candlelight on vellum in a dim cell, and the whispered Latin in a field at terce—a humble vessel for carrying an ordered cosmos of prayer into the disordered fields of daily life.
Etymology
From Middle English porthors, from Old French porte-hors (“a kind of portable prayer-book”).
noun
- A breviary; a prayer book.“an old Priest in that age, which always read in his Portass, Mumpsimus Domine for Sumpsimus; whereof when he was admonished, he said that he now had used Mumpsimus thirty years, and would not leave his old Mumpsimus for their new Sumpsimus.”
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