portass

• portace, portas, portasse, portess, portesse, portise, porthose, portos, portus, portuse

From Middle English porthors, from Old French porte-hors (“a kind of portable prayer-book”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɔː(ɹ)təs/

portass (plural portasses)

1. (obsolete, Early Modern) A breviary; a prayer book.
   • 1605, M. N. [pseudonym; William Camden], Remaines of a Greater Worke, Concerning Britaine, […], London: […] G[eorge] E[ld] for Simon Waterson, →OCLC:

     an old Priest in that age, which always read in his Portass, Mumpsimus Domine for Sumpsimus; whereof when he was admonished, he said that he now had used Mumpsimus thirty years, and would not leave his old Mumpsimus for their new Sumpsimus.

   • 1545, John Bale, The Image of Both Churches:

     Their portases, bedes, temples, aultars.

   • 1553, [unknown translator], Stephen Gardiner, De vera obedientia:

     Boner hath set up again in Paules Salesburi Latin portace.

   • 1565, Robert Wever, An Enterlude called lusty Juventus:

     Let me see your portous, gentle sir John.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “(please specify the book)”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     In his hand his portesse still he bare, That much was worn, but therein little red; For of devotion he had little care.

• “portass”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• Sproats, asports, pastors, sap rots