How to pronounce port

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What port means

noun

Most people know port in its everyday sense. Here's its other meaning.

The left side of a ship or plane, facing the front

In a sentence: From the port side of the ferry, we could see the lighthouse on our left.

Where it comes from: It is the same word as port, a harbor, from the Latin portus. Old ships had their steering oar on the right, so they tied up with their left side against the dock, and people have called the left side port since at least the 1500s.

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