portico
(ˈpɔətɪkəʊ)
Pl. -oes, -os (also 7 -o's).
[a. It. (also Sp., Pg.) portico:—L. porticus colonnade, arcade, porch, f. porta door, gate, port n.3]
1. Arch. a. A covered ambulatory consisting of a roof supported by columns placed at regular intervals, usually attached as a porch to a building, but sometimes forming a separate structure; a colonnade; † a pergola in a garden (obs.).
| 1605 B. Jonson Volpone ii. i, I..wont to fix my bank in face of the public Piazza, near the shelter of the Portico to the Procuratia. 1649 Evelyn Diary 30 May, His Majesty's statues thrown down at St. Paule's Portico and the Exchange. a 1662 Heylin Laud i. 210 He caused a stately Portico to be erected at the West end of the Church. 1686 Burnet Trav. iv. (1750) 233 The Beauty of their Temples, and of the Porticos before them, is amazing. 1706 Lond. Gaz. No. 4249/3 Making all sorts of Parterres, Porticoes, Arbours. 1758 Johnson Idler No. 33 ¶27 The porticos where Socrates sat. 1870 Bryant Iliad I. vi. 194 Priam's noble hall, A palace built with graceful porticos. 1886 Ruskin Præterita I. 325 Porticoes should not be carried on the top of arches. |
b. spec. The Painted Porch at Athens: see
porch 4; hence
fig. the Stoic philosophy. Also
allusively.
| 1788 Gibbon Decl. & F. xliv. IV. 352 From the portico, the Roman civilians learned to live, to reason, and to die. 1825 Lamb Elia Ser. ii. Barbara S―, Poor men's smoky cabins are not always porticoes of moral philisophy. 1837 Macaulay Ess., Bacon (1877) 403 Suppose that Justinian..had called on the last few sages who still haunted the Portico. |
2. transf. and
fig.| 1720 Ozell Vertot's Rom. Rep. I. iv. 228 Two Javelins were fixed in the Earth, and a third fastened across upon the Points of those. All the æqui..passed under this military Portico. 1727–46 Thomson Summer 1393 Now to the verdant portico of woods..they walk. 1831 Carlyle in Froude Life (1882) II. 226 Now it seems to me as if this life were but the inconsiderable portico of man's existence. |
3. attrib. as
portico area;
portico thief = cat-burglar (
s.v. cat n.1 18 and 19).
| 1977 N.Z. Herald 5 Jan. 2-16/8 (Advt.), Portico area for outdoor entertainment. |
| 1934 P. Savage Savage of Scotland Yard xxiv. 260 Suspicion fell on half a dozen or more cat burglars—or portico thieves as they were officially called. 1938 F. D. Sharpe Sharpe of Flying Squad xxv. 254 Cat-burglars have existed since there have been houses to climb, but until comparatively recently they were always known by the more prosaic title of Portico Thieves. |
Hence
ˈporticoed a., furnished with a portico.
| 1665 J. Webb Stone-Heng (1725) 103 the Temples..were circumalated, or either singly or doubly porticoed about. 1856 Miss Mulock J. Halifax i, The High Street, with the mayor's house..porticoed and grand. |