Word.ws English Dictionary

purtenance

purtenance noun: possession (something that belongs to someone).

Noun

purtenance (plural purtenances)

  1. (obsolete) possession (something that belongs to someone)
    • The purtenaunces of purgatory.1370-90, William Langland, Piers Plowman
  2. (obsolete) The heart, liver, and lungs of an animal.
    • Roast [it] with fire, his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 12:9

Forms of purtenance

pluralpurtenances

Origin of purtenance

Clipping of appurtenance.

Questions about purtenance

What does purtenance mean?
Purtenance means possession (something that belongs to someone).
What part of speech is purtenance?
Purtenance is a noun.
What is the plural of purtenance?
The plural of purtenance is purtenances.

Words near purtenance in the dictionary

  1. pursy
  2. Purtee
  3. Purtees
  4. Purtell
  5. Purtells
  6. purtenance
  7. purtenances
  8. purtier
  9. purtiest
  10. Purtill
  11. purtily

Source and license

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