portly

«portly» in Mova's school dictionary: Rather fat, with a large round body; a polite or… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adjective (portly, portlier, portliest)

meaning for a pupil

(of a person, usually an older man) Rather fat, with a large round body; a polite or old-fashioned word. tree →

sense in the lessons

In stories «portly» describes a character, often a cheerful older gentleman or a mayor — it paints a picture kindly. In real life calling people fat is rude; portly is gentler but still a comment on someone's body.

examples

• A portly gentleman sat in the armchair. tree →
• The portly innkeeper laughed at the joke. tree →
• Father Christmas is often shown as portly and jolly. tree →
• The portly mayor puffed up the stairs. tree →
• The story's portly cook loved her own cakes. tree →
• His broad, portly person, hid the slender, lovely Babette; but she came forward and glanced at him with her bright, dark eyes. tree →

note

Polite, old-fashioned: like «stout», «plump», «rotund». Not about «port» (harbour). Avoid talking about real people's bodies.

In the corpora

• Portly is comforted by the promise of «a jaunt on the river in Mr.
• "Portly" is an old-fashioned word for a fat man.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «portly» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.