portly
/ˈpɔːtli/US/ˈpɔɹtli/
portly adjective: somewhat fat, pudgy, overweight.
Adjective
portly (comparative portlier, superlative portliest)
- Somewhat fat, pudgy, overweight.
- Indeed, the poor man has grown ten times as nervous as ever, since he has discovered, on such good authority, who the stout gentleman was. . . . He has anxiously endeavored to call up a recollection of what he saw of that portly personage; and has ever since kept a curious eye on all gentlemen of...1824, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “Introduction”, in Tales of a Traveller, part 1 (Strange Stories. […]), Philadelphia, Pa.: H[enry] C[harles] Carey & I[saac] Lea, […], →OCLC
- In the length he attains, and in his baleen, the Fin-back resembles the right whale, but is of a less portly girth, and a lighter colour, approaching to olive.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 32, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 151
- Having a dignified bearing; handsome, imposing.
- He ſends this Souldans daughter rich and braue,
To be my Queene and portly Empereſſe, […]c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC... - Portly his person was, and much increast
Through his Heroicke grace and honourable gest.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
- He ſends this Souldans daughter rich and braue,
portly meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
portly in Urdu
- باوقار, بڑا, جسیم
portly in Bengali
- স্থূলকায়, মোটা
portly in Malayalam
- ഗൗരവഗതിയായ, ധീരമായ, തടിച്ച, ബലിഷ്ഠമായ
portly in Kannada
- ಕೊಬ್ಬಿದ, ತೂಕದ, ದಿಂಡು, ಸ್ಥೂಲದೇಹದ, ಧಡೂತಿಯಾದ, ಠೊಣಪನಾದ
Examples of portly in a sentence
- He has anxiously endeavored to call up a recollection of what he saw of that portly personage; and has ever since kept a curious eye on all gentlemen of more than ordinary dimensions.1824, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “Introduction”, in Tales of a Traveller, part 1 (Strange Stories. […]), Philadelphia...
- His portly middle section, rising beyond like a small hill, heaved rhythmically.1913, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 14, in The Little Nugget:
Forms of portly
| comparative | portlier |
|---|---|
| superlative | portliest |
Origin of portly
From an archaic sense of port (“manner in which a person carries himself; bearing; deportment; carriage”) + -ly.
Words formed from portly
Words that rhyme with portly
Questions about portly
- What does portly mean?
- Portly means somewhat fat, pudgy, overweight.
- What is portly in Urdu?
- Portly in Urdu is باوقار, بڑا, جسیم. See Portly meaning in Urdu.
- How do you use portly in a sentence?
- He has anxiously endeavored to call up a recollection of what he saw of that portly personage; and has ever since kept a curious eye on all gentlemen of more than ordinary dimensions.
- What part of speech is portly?
- Portly is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce portly?
- Portly is pronounced /ˈpɔːtli/ (UK).
Words near portly in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: portly (page history and authors); portly (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); portly (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); portly (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); portly (Kannada Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-portly.wav.
Cite this entry: “portly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/portly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.