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What is "portcullis"

Crossword clues for portcullis

portcullis
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
portcullis
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A connection was made to the stand pipe each time the portcullis end gates were raised.
▪ Another one rose, like a portcullis.
▪ At each end of the tanks are portcullis gates, which are opened and closed by hydraulic rams.
▪ Inside there was a portcullis of some dark metal.
▪ The bridge was not up, the portcullis raised and the guard in the gatehouse evidently keeping warm before a fire therein.
▪ The parliamentary portcullis is featured above his head.
▪ There were moments when it felt like a portcullis downward-slammed between herself and the human community.
▪ This is meant to convey a sense of security and privacy: the drawbridge is pulled up and the portcullis is dropped.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Portcullis

Portcullis \Port*cul"lis\, n. [OF. porte coulisse, cole["i]ce, a sliding door, fr. L. colare, colatum, to filter, to strain: cf. F. couler to glide. See Port a gate, and cf. Cullis, Colander.]

  1. (Fort.) A grating of iron or of timbers pointed with iron, hung over the gateway of a fortress, to be let down to prevent the entrance of an enemy. ``Let the portcullis fall.''
    --Sir W. Scott.

    She . . . the huge portcullis high updrew.
    --Milton.

  2. An English coin of the reign of Elizabeth, struck for the use of the East India Company; -- so called from its bearing the figure of a portcullis on the reverse.

Portcullis

Portcullis \Port*cul"lis\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Portcullised; p. pr. & vb. n. Portcullising.] To obstruct with, or as with, a portcullis; to shut; to bar. [R.]
--Shak.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
portcullis

also port-cullis, c.1300, from Old French porte coleice "sliding gate" (c.1200, Modern French porte à coulisse), from porte "gate" (see port (n.2)) + coleice "sliding, flowing," fem. of coleis, from Latin colatus, past participle of colare "to filter, strain" (see colander).

Wiktionary
portcullis

n. 1 A gate in the form of a grating which is lowered into place at the entrance to a castle, fort, etc. 2 (context historical English) An English coin of the reign of (w: Elizabeth I), struck for the use of the (w: East India Company), and bearing the figure of a portcullis on the reverse. vb. To obstruct with, or as with, a portcullis; to shut; to bar.

WordNet
portcullis

n. gate consisting of an iron or wooden grating that hangs in the entry to a castle or fortified town; can be lowered to prevent passage

Wikipedia
Portcullis

A portcullis (from the French , "sliding door") is a heavy vertically-closing gate typically found in medieval fortifications, consisting of a latticed grille made of wood, metal, or a combination of the two, which slides down grooves inset within each jamb of the gateway.

Usage examples of "portcullis".

Before them, across the ballium, was another gate and a broad moat, but the drawbridge was lowered, the portcullis raised and the gateway unguarded.

The wily Beduin knew the purpose of that portcullis and he was trying to plan best how he might enter the enclosure beyond before it could be dropped before his face.

With Breck beside him, Akeela followed the sentry out of the yard, through a portcullis and into the main keep.

Tken the Queen and her ladies passed like a group of living flowers through the portcullised gateway in the second line of battlemented walls, and Gwalch-mai, Huon, and Sir Periton followed into the inner bailey.

The portcullis was down, the drawbridge drawn up from a moat so ancient and unkempt that the water in it was a foul stagnance of green and brown slimes.

Saski with sledges was already trying to free the portcullis and lower the drawbridge, to let Alkides bring in his artillery and finish off the keep.

Inside the gate tower was the great portcullis, a vast mass of crossed iron bars that could be lowered rapidly in case of attack.

At the other end of the barway another portcullis stood raised, and beyond that the Warrows rode into the lower levels of the city proper, and the smells and sounds and sights of the city assaulted them, and their senses were overwhelmed, for they had ridden into an enormous bazaar, the great open market of Rian at Challerain Keep.

Mario Incandenza sways down the steep path to the portcullis in the warm rain and interfaces with Clipperton through the bars and has the attendant hold the intercom-button down for him and personally requests that Clipperton be admitted under a special nonplay codicil to the regulations, saying the kid is truly in desperate psychic straits, Mario speaking first to Lateral Alice Moore and then to this prorector Cantrell and then to the Headmaster himself as Clipperton stares wordlessly up at the little wrought-iron racquet-heads that serve as spikes at the top of the portcullis and fencing around E.

Immediately they passed under the spikes of the half-raised portcullis, it was slammed back down into place and the crew strained to close and rebar the ironwood gates.

The second portcullis,, at the far end of the tunnellike entrance, had fallen and jammed partway.

But no sooner was Abdullah across than he heard it being winched back up, heard the crash of the portcullis behind him, and saw black soldiers drop from someplace in the entry walls to close and bar the massive gates, then trot ahead of him to open those at the other end of the entry.

At the other end of the barbican there was another portcullis, so that you could be trapped between the two and annihilated from above, while the bartizans, or hanging turrets, had holes in their floors through which the defenders could drop things on your head.

She half expected to see the iron teeth of a portcullis winking from the ceiling, defenestrating knights peering out of arrow slits above, cauldrons of boiling pitch at the ready.

One woman dropped her polearm to scale the portcullis, but a sergeant yanked her back to earth, pointed to the down-jutting spikes that ringed the battlements to hinder climbers.