Chapter Pope to Port of P by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

to Hercules, because he destroyed Kakos in a cavern of Mount Aventine, which was covered with poplars. In the moment of triumph the hero plucked a branch from one of the trees and bound it round his head. When he descended to the infernal regions, the heat caused a profuse perspiration which blanched the under surface of the leaves, while the smoke of the eternal flames blackened the upper surface. Hence the Herculean poplar has its leaves black on one side and white on the other.

Porcelain (3 syl.), from porcelana, “a little pig.” So called by the Portuguese traders, from its resemblance to cowrie-shells, the shape of which is not unlike a pig's back. The Chinese earthenware being white and glossy, like the inside of the shells, suggested the application of the name. (See Marryatt's History of Pottery and Porcelain.)

Porch (The). A philosophic sect generally called Stoics (Greek, stoa, a porch), because Zeno, the founder, gave his lectures in the Athenian picture gallery, called the porch Poecile.

“The successors of Socrates formed societies which lasted several centuries; the Academy, the Porch, the Garden.”- Professor Seeley: Ecce Homo.

Porcupine (See Peter .)

Porcus The Latins call me “porcus.” A sly reproof to anyone boasting, showing off, or trying to make himself appear greater than he is. The fable says that a wolf was going to devour a pig, when the pig observed that it was Friday, and no good Catholic would eat meat on a Friday. Going on together, the wolf said to the pig, “They seem to call you by many names.” “Yes,” said the pig, “I am called swine, grunter, hog, and I know not what besides. The Latins call me porcus. ” “Porpus, do they?” said the wolf, making an intentional blunder. “Well, porpoise is a fish, and we may eat fish on a Friday.” So saying, he devoured him without another word.”

Porcus Literarum A literary glutton, one who devours books without regard to quality.

Pork! Pork! Sylvester, in his translation of Du Bartas, gives this instead of caw, caw, as the cry of the raven.
   Pork. Sir Thomas Browne says that the Jews abstain from pork not from fear of leprosy, as Tacitus alleges, but because the swine is an emblem of impurity. (Vulgar Errors.)

Pork Pig. The former is Norman-French, the latter Saxon.

“Pork, I think, is good Norman-French; and so, when the brute lives, and is in charge of a Saxon slave, she goes by her Saxon name; but becomes a Norman, and is called pork, when she is carried to the castle-hall.”- Sir Walter Scott: Ivanhoe.

Porphyrion One of the giants who made war with the gods. He hurled the island of Delos against Zeus (Jupiter); but Zeus, with the aid of Hercules, overcame him. (Greek fable.) (See Giants .)

Porridge Everything tastes of porridge. However we may deceive ourselves, whatever castles in the air we may construct, the fact of home life will always intrude. Sir Walter Scott tells us of an insane man who thought the asylum his castle, the servants his own menials, the inmates his guests. “Although,” said he, “I am provided with a first-rate cook and proper assistants, and although my table is regularly furnished with every delicacy of the season, yet so depraved is my palate that everything I eat tastes of porridge.” His palate was less vitiated than his imagination.

Port, meaning larboard or left side, is an abbreviation of porta il timone (carry the helm). Porting arms is carrying them on the left hand.
“To heel to port” is to lean on the left side (Saxon, hyldan, to incline). “To lurch to port” is to leap or roll over on the left side (Welsh, llercian).

“She gave a heel, and then a lurch to port,
And, going down head-foremost, sunk in short.”
Byron: Don Juan.

   Port. An air of music; martial music. Hence Tytler says, “I have never been able to meet with any of the ports here referred to” (Dissertation on Scotch Music). The word is Gaelic.