means An entrance, gateway, or doorway — especially a grand or significant one, or, in digital life, a website that serves as a main point of access to information and services.

from From Latin 'porta,' a city gate or door, via the medieval Latin 'portale' meaning a porch or grand entrance — a cousin of 'port' (a harbor, where ships pass through) and the verb 'to import' (to carry through a doorway). The word arrived in English through Old French in the medieval period, originally for the imposing arched gateways of churches and castles. Its leap to magic doorways and computer screens came much later, but the bones of the word always meant: a way through.