Word.ws English Dictionary

portculis

portculis is the rare form of portcullis.

Meaning of portcullis

Noun

portcullis (plural portcullises or portcullisses or (rare) portculli or (rare) portscullis)

  1. A gate in the form of a grating which is lowered into place at the gateway of a castle, a fort, etc.
    Synonyms:
    cataract
  2. (historical) An old English coin from the reign of Elizabeth I, minted for the use of the East India Company, and bearing the picture of a portcullis on the reverse.

See all 3 meanings of portcullis

Forms of portculis

pluralportculises
pluralportculisses

Questions about portculis

What is portculis the rare form of?
Portculis is the rare form of portcullis.

Words near portculis in the dictionary

  1. portcluses
  2. portco
  3. portcos
  4. portcrayon
  5. portcrayons
  6. portculis
  7. portculises
  8. portculisses
  9. portculleis
  10. portculleises
  11. portculles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: portculis (page history and authors); portcullis (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “portculis.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/portculis. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.