Word.ws English Dictionary

portculles

portculles is the archaic 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 portculles

pluralportculleses
pluralportcullesses

Questions about portculles

What is portculles the archaic form of?
Portculles is the archaic form of portcullis.

Words near portculles in the dictionary

  1. portculis
  2. portculises
  3. portculisses
  4. portculleis
  5. portculleises
  6. portculles
  7. portculleses
  8. portcullesses
  9. portculli
  10. portcullis
  11. portcullised

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: portculles (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: “portculles.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/portculles. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.