Poort

gate, gateway, port
[noun]
[de poort, de poor-ten] 

Poort A ‘poort’ is an ‘arched gate / way through’ and provides access to a different space or area. An arched passageway of significant length will be called a ‘tunnel’ or a ‘(overdekte) passage/doorgang’.

‘Poort’ is typically translated as ‘gate’, although it must be somewhat arched; otherwise ‘hek’ is a common translation of ‘gate’. An ‘arch’ could be translated as ‘poort’ in Dutch, however when it is an independent object, e.g. the Washington Arch or the Arc de Triomphe, a better translation would be ‘boog’.

‘Poort’ is also used in computer terminology, e.g. port 80 (which as you all know is the default port for HTTP traffic) is translated as ‘poort 80’.

Examples:
– “Petrus heeft de sleutels van de hemelpoort.” 
(“Saint Peter holds the keys to heaven.” Lit. “of the heavenly gate.”)

– “Het lukt me niet om een SSL-tunnel op te zetten met mijn webbrowser.” – “Eens kijken…, heb je toevallig poort 443 geblokkeerd in je firewall?” 
(“I don’t succeed in am not succeeding in setting up an SSL tunnel using my web browser.” – “Let me see…, is port 443 blocked in your firewall by any chance?”)

– “Frodo bibberde van angst bij het aanzien van de Zwarte Poort van Mordor.” 
(“Frodo was shaking with fear when he saw the Black Gate of Mordor.” Note that ‘het aanzien’ typically translates as ‘the looking at’, ‘the witnessing’.)

– “Als je die poort doorgaat, kom je in de kloostertuin. Die is zeker een bezoek waard!” 
(“If you walk on through that gate you will get to the convent garden. It’s definitely worth a visit!”)

Related words:
– Hemelpoort: heavenly gate [de hemelpoort, <no plural>].
– Poorten: to nutmeg [verb] [poortte, gepoort].
– Hek: gate, fence [noun] [het hek, de hekken].
– Ingang: entrance, entry [noun] [de ingang, de ingangen].

4 thoughts on “Poort

  1. Hi Sander,
    I’m sure you know this, but – just like the subtlety inherent in the fact that a poort has to be somewhat arched – we wouldn’t say:
    “I don’t succeed in setting up an SSL tunnel using my web browser.”
    We’d rather say “I’m/I am not succeeding in…), or more likely “I can’t set up…”.
    I now retire to my pedantic bunker for the weekend! 🙂

  2. Hey Chris,
    As always I’m very happy with any comment to my posts 🙂
    I wanted to capture the use of ‘lukken’ in the translation (because as you know, the translation is meant to show you how Dutch works) so I’ll go with “I am not succeeding…”
    Bedankt! En een prettig verblijf in je bunker! 😉

  3. Hi, if you wanted to use the work lukken (or even the english word luck), I would normally say “I’m not having much / any luck in setting up an SSL tunnel….”! But I think we are well past corrections on this one now! Love the blog!
    Dank je wel.

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