Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Port \Port\, n. [AS. port, L. portus: cf. F. port. See Farm, v., Ford, and 1st, 3d, & 4h Port.]
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A place where ships may ride secure from storms; a sheltered inlet, bay, or cove; a harbor; a haven. Used also figuratively.
Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads.
--Shak.We are in port if we have Thee.
--Keble. -
In law and commercial usage, a harbor where vessels are admitted to discharge and receive cargoes, from whence they depart and where they finish their voyages.
Free port. See under Free.
Port bar. (Naut,) (a) A boom. See Boom, 4, also Bar,
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(b) A bar, as of sand, at the mouth of, or in, a port.
Port charges (Com.), charges, as wharfage, etc., to which a ship or its cargo is subjected in a harbor.
Port of entry, a harbor where a customhouse is established for the legal entry of merchandise.
Port toll (Law), a payment made for the privilege of bringing goods into port.
Port warden, the officer in charge of a port; a harbor master.
WordNet
n. a port where customs officials are stationed to oversee the entry and exit of people and merchandise [syn: point of entry]
Wikipedia
In general, a port of entry (POE) is a place where one may lawfully enter a country. It typically has a staff of people who check passports and visas and inspect luggage to assure that contraband is not imported. International airports are usually ports of entry, as are road and rail crossings on a land border. Seaports can be used as ports of entry only if a dedicated customs presence is posted there. The choice of whether to become a port of entry is up to the civil authority controlling the port.
Usage examples of "port of entry".
It's a decent city for being out there in the middle of nowhere, particularly since it became a main port of entry for airplanes.
In the old days, the bag would have been opened at the port of entry, but in these kinder and gentler times the long-service government employee got in the official car at Dulles and rode all the way to Foggy Bottom.
On most planets they'd be good enough to get him in and out without a second glance but customs and immigration at the planet's only port of entry would have no record of his arrival.
Also, of course, the Cosians were presumably moving toward either Brundisium, which had been the port of entry of their invasion fleet, or south to join Myron in the vicinity of Torcadino, where Dietrich of Tarnburg, the mercenary, lay at bay, like a larl in his den.
On most planets they'd be good enough to get him in and out without a second glance but customs and immigration at the planet's only port of entry would have no rec.
Alexander knew the Louisiana city was the major port of entry for narcotics throughout the Southern and Southwestern states.
Aziz was going back as a Martianhis elongated physique didn't fit well with a Centauran identity and might have encouraged unwelcome scrutiny at the port of entry, even though there were plenty of Centauran citizens who had grown up in Mars-strength gravity on the smaller planets of the triple-star system.
I never heard of it-we've had no one from that planet since I took charge of this port of entry .