porch

From Middle English porche, from Old French, from Latin porticus (“portico”). Doublet of portego, portico, and porticus.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /pɔːtʃ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /pɔɹt͡ʃ/
• (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /po(ː)ɹtʃ/
• (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /poətʃ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)tʃ

porch (plural porches)

1. (architecture) A covered entrance to a building, whether taken from the interior, and forming a sort of vestibule within the main wall, or projecting without and with a separate roof. A porch often has chair(s), table(s) and swings.

   He sat on his porch, waiting for his friend to come over.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     But Miss Thorn relieved the situation by laughing aloud, […] . We began to tell her about Mohair and the cotillon, and of our point of observation from the Florentine galleried porch, and she insisted she would join us there.

2. A portico; a covered walk.
3. The platform outside the external hatch of a spacecraft.
   • 2012, Courtney G. Brooks, James M. Grimwood, Loyd S. Swenson, Chariots for Apollo:

     By the time he had put on the backpack, McDivitt was ready to let him do more—to stand on the porch at least.

• see Thesaurus:porch

• loggia
• porte-cochère