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portion

[pawr-shuhn, pohr-]

Example Sentences Origin

noun

a part of any whole, either separated from or integrated with it: I read a portion of the manuscript.

an amount of food served for one person; serving; helping: He took a large portion of spinach.

the part of a whole allotted to or belonging to a person or group; share.

the part of an estate that goes to an heir or a next of kin.

Literary. something that is allotted to a person by God or fate.

EXPAND

(especially formerly) the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings to her husband at marriage; dowry.

COLLAPSE

verb (used with object)

to divide into or distribute in portions or shares (often followed by out).

to furnish with a portion, as with an inheritance or a dowry: All of his children have been amply portioned.

to provide with a lot or fate: She was portioned with sorrow throughout her life.

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Portion is one of our favorite verbs.

So is kibitz. Does it mean:

to steal or take dishonestly (money, esp. public funds, or property entrusted to one's care); embezzle.

chat, to converse

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Origin:
1250–1300; Middle English porcion < Old French < Latin portiōn- (stem of portiō) share, part, akin to pars part

Related forms

por·tion·a·ble, adjective

por·tion·less, adjective

re·por·tion, verb (used with object)

un·por·tion·a·ble, adjective

un·por·tioned, adjective

Can be confused: portion, potion.

Synonyms
1. section, segment. See part. 2. ration. 3. allotment, quota, lot, dividend. 4. inheritance. 5. fortune, lot, destiny, doom. 7. allot, apportion. 8. endow.

Antonyms
1. whole.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
Cite This Source

Link To portion

Example Sentences

Reduce the equities portion and increase the bond if you are skittish or near retirement.

More relevant are measures of union density, which tell us what portion of the total workforce is unionised.

After seven days on the moon's surface, the crew will return to the orbiting capsule using a portion of the lunar lander.

EXPAND

Reduce the equities portion and increase the bond if you are skittish or near retirement.

More relevant are measures of union density, which tell us what portion of the total workforce is unionised.

After seven days on the moon's surface, the crew will return to the orbiting capsule using a portion of the lunar lander.

The portion of our planet affected by serious drought has doubled in the last three decades, a new study suggests.

The head is the triangular shaped portion near the top, and the right forelimb can be seen to the left.

Or plant a portion of your existing garden, perhaps an island bed, with a cottage-style mix of perennials and roses.

The ankle functions as a knee, the foot becomes the upper shin, and a prosthetic leg then fills out the lower portion.

Let's give them the benefit of a big concession and say that a significant portion of those protests are race-based.

And so an unemployment distribution with a thicker red portion will take longer to resolve.

Migration: birds in the northern portion of range and at higher elevations migrate south during fall and winter.

Occasionally, a single photon from the beam converts into two photons, each with a portion of the original's energy and momentum.

As it stands now, the famous quarry wall is only a portion of what once was.

Instead, several main limbs angle outward from the top portion of a short trunk.

The sharp laser beam further zeros in on a small portion of the brain.

After all, it's going to make up a portion of your tenure file.

They idealize a time not only as an era of their own life but for the portion of the lives of the people among them.

Currently spacecraft remains occupy only a small portion of the lunar surface, he said.

To do so, they removed a small portion of the cranium and shined a laser light inside.

The head portion of the squid pokes out of a conical, rubbery structure called the mantle, which encloses the internal organs.

Cookbooks are tucked into the raised portion of the counter that separates the kitchen and the dining space.

The dollar-denominated portion was the biggest ever too.

Elected and trusted by the men, the quartermaster made sure that each pirate received a fair portion of the loot.

Human genes are the smaller portion of the equation now.

But a significant portion of this animal's anatomy remained missing.

The edible portion of the installation, shortly after installation.

The public investment portion of the bill isn't likely to be as job intensive.

The upper portion is a cluttered, deformed mix of galaxies, some of which seem to be in the process of merging.

Cantor's loss was so great that its portion of the memorial surrounds almost half of the north pool.

During breeding season, a rich network of song nuclei takes up a large portion of a male songbird's brain.

Use an ice cream scoop to quickly portion out batter into pan cups.

First, it indexed a much larger portion of the web than anything that had come before.

Discard the top portion of the shirt or use for a rag.

When clouds are thin, they let a large portion of the light through and appear white.

Louis art museum if necessary or removea small portion from an inconspicous part if required.

To encourage visits from a wide variety of birds, a large portion of the garden area surrounding the pond was left unpaved.

In the west the tsingy walls in a large portion of forest.

The bacteria don't have to survive the burning portion to be transported into the body.

Far better to show a smaller portion of the work at a comprehensible pace.

Remove any foliage from the portion of stems that will be underwater in your vase.

The eastern portion of this ecoregion may have been a lake not long ago.

Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate," he writes.

It is a time of thanksgiving when the successful crew shares a portion of the catch with the community.

With bellies full of small fish, they will regurgitate a portion for waiting chicks.

If its bid to buy the remaining portion of it had been approved, it would have made this sector the largest of.

But only a drastically smaller number practice even a portion of what they teach.

I've always wondered if there may be a large portion of the universe that is composed of anti-matter.

Portion of the side of the church can be seen on the left side of the photograph.

Note that a portion of the crushed ice, which should cover the cell, has been removed to provide a better view of the apparatus.

The movie's plot is a little start-and-stop, a good portion of it won't make sense to the.

In addition to listing calorie counts, restaurants should routinely offer different portion sizes.

The board meets three or four times a year, and the business portion of each meeting lasts about five hours.

It represents a significant portion of any society's economic activities.

The study's results fly in the face of the long-held view that as time goes on people use a smaller portion of their brain.

Loans are debt financing, while equity funding involves raising money by selling a portion of your ownership in the company.

The capital infusion partners possess or create extensive precision metrics to manage their portion of the enterprise.

In his business, firms always reserve a small portion of each newly designed chip for testing.

No portion of the video may be edited or put into any other format.

The strangest part of this middle portion of the film was the appearance of several well-known marine reptile experts.

By selectively focusing a portion of the view, the columns encourage you to pay.

No prize or any portion thereof is transferable or redeemable for cash.

For a large portion of the nation's seemingly successful undergraduates, studying is such a drag.

The whole review is comments of this sort and vague and hostile questions about a small portion of the whole study.

In many states a portion of those fees goes to the prison system.

Only a small portion of the cavern has been explored so far.

Jessome informed me that he had freequently administered a small portion of the rattle of the rattle.

Any portion of the prize that is not used is forfeited.

No one knows why deaths are more common during the swim portion of triathlons, but researchers have some intriguing theories.

Go to the higher education or college portion of the site and click through each school.

Rain forests are a significant portion of the world's tropical region.

The knotty and often profound questions encountered in the research engaged a substantial portion of the formal and informal.

It is lack of blood flow through the adipose tissues that provides a substantial portion of its insulating capacity.

Thus, one may be a tenured full professor receiving only the guaranteed portion of salary of a few tens of thousands of dollars.

Reuters has declined to comment on any portion of this article.

And a sizable portion of researchers-22 percent-don't receive any outside funding at all.

Another tip is to portion the pesto into muffin cups, freeze, and then place the frozen pesto cups in a freezer storage bag.

Apple is widely expected to integrate some portion of that service into.

Keane reminded the audience that university presses make up only a small portion of the publishing world.

The truth is, a great portion of the world lives that way now.

Free radicals in that tooth will absorb some portion of this microwave radiation.

Vulnerable countries could find themselves in an even trickier position if investors demanded higher yields on this portion.

The back portion of the brain is better connected, more stable, than the frontal lobes.

But beyond annoying and alienating a sizable portion of users, it also appears it was rather effective.

The city offers tax breaks and uses a portion of the property tax to pay for improvement projects.

So reduce your seafood portion to about four to five ounces and pile up the vegetables.

The hopping pattern may be adapted to exclude a portion of the frequencies that are used by interfering devices.

Some-Dylan himself included-attribute a portion of the audience's reaction to the poor sound quality of the performance.

The highlight of this portion of the house is the spiritual room, formerly the missile control room.

Packer and his colleagues believe a portion of the profits could finance both conservation of the animals and their habitat.

They attain a maximum unsustainable size and shed a portion of themselves.

Cocchi would collect the fee, keep a portion for himself and kick back the rest to the officer.

The portion in which they hijack a spaceship, are exposed to cosmic rays and transform is well-known.

Only a small portion of the population was hurt or killed.

Centered on the upper portion of the phone's back is the standard protruding camera lens.

Get an overview of the mountain, and find information on visiting the area from the organization that owns a portion of it.

Regarding the number of scientists versus number in the survey, the survey is a huge portion.

View through a portion of the broadcast antenna that fell from the top of the north tower.

Portion control, lifestyle and exercise are recognized variables too.

We are nearing the final hours of the research portion of the cruise.

The part that does not want to stop is the limbic system or the survival portion of the brain.

Including a significant portion of the savings of those who still think they are safe.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

portion (ˈpɔːʃən)

—n
1.	a part of a whole; fraction
2.	a part allotted or belonging to a person or group
3.	an amount of food served to one person; helping
4.	law
	a. a share of property, esp one coming to a child from the estate of his parents
	b. the property given by a woman to her husband at marriage; dowry
5.	a person's lot or destiny

—vb
6.	to divide up; share out
7.	to give a share to (a person); assign or allocate
8.	law to give a dowry or portion to (a person); endow

[C13: via Old French from Latin portiō portion, allocation; related to parspart]

'portionless

—*adj*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

portion

c.1300, from O.Fr. porcion (12c.), from L. portionem (nom. portio) "share, part," accusative of the noun in the phrase pro portione "according to the relation (of parts to each other)" (see proportion). The verb meaning "to divide in portions" is recorded from early 14c.

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