There are 2 results of your search for port.
port
noun 1. a suitcase: *No, she just paid up proper-like t' the end of the week, an' orf she went with 'er port, down t' the station, I suppose. –GEORGE JOHNSTON, 1964.
2. a school bag or school case. [shortened form of portmanteau]
Contributor's comments: I have never heard the word "port" (meaning schoolbag or case) south of Newcastle. The first time I heard of it was in 1970 when I went to Uni in N'cle.
Contributor's comments: I have lived in Sydney all my life and I have never heard anyone say "port" for "suitcase". If it has been used in NSW, is it now very old fashioned?
Contributor's comments: At Bega High School, we has a sign outside the science block that read "leave ports here". This endlessly confused my friend who had just arrived from Victoria. He swears his first thought was "they allow kids to bring Port (the wine) to school?"
Contributor's comments: In the 1940s & 50s port was used in northern NSW and Qld, but I never heard it used by Sydney siders.
Contributor's comments: I always thought the word was based in Queeensland. I was born in Grafton and my relatives from there and Coffs Harbour use it as well as others that moved further south to Taree. I was unaware until now that it is regional to the east coast. But then again by now it has possibly travelled since I was young.
Contributor's comments: Port is used for suitcase, I agree, but it is also used in Queensland schools for a school bag of any size or shape, not just a suitcase or portmanteau.
Contributor's comments: I have lived in Brisbane since birth and can't recall ever hearing a suitcase or bag of any kind being referred to as a port. I always thought is was a southern expression (particularly Adelaide).
Contributor's comments: "Port" was commonly used in my 50s NSW rural childhood but mainly to denote the ubiquitous fibre board (Globite) schoolcase.
Contributor's comments: The word 'port' is still widely used around Townsville as a substitute for 'suitcase'. I thought that it was not in very common usage in southern cities including Sydney and Brisbane, but this website suggests otherwise. In any event, it is still in very common usage in Townsville.
Contributor's comments: To add to the area using this regionalism, I had a friend from the Torres Straits, who had only lived for a short time away from home, and he used to refer to his suitcase as a port.
Contributor's comments: I have not heard the word "port" used in Sydney, but have heard it used in Tamworth and other parts of the North West slopes and plains and the New England.
Contributor's comments: This word is also used in South Australia.
Contributor's comments: This term is used almost exclusively here [north coast Qld]. People using the word "suitcase" are obviously not local.
Contributor's comments: I first heard the word 'port' when a friend from Darwin moved to my school in Sydney and used it. He said everyone in Darwin called their schoolbags ports. Talking with other people about it over the years, it appeared to be common throughout Queensland and down to Newcastle as well but not in Sydney or further south.
Contributor's comments: Though your definition of "port" is suitcase, I clearly recall it also meaning a school bag back when I was attending primary school in Queensland (west of Ipswich) in the early 1960's. When my family moved to NSW in 1965 I still said "port" but no one in my (NSW) class - grade 3 at the time - knew what I was talking about. To them it was a school bag.
Contributor's comments: In Queensland, rather than being a general term for suitcase, port is used to refer to the school bags of primary school children. They are, of course, neatly arranged on a 'port rack'.
Contributor's comments: [Brisbane informant] [This] was standard at school.
Contributor's comments: Only person I ever heard use this word was from Melbourne.
Contributor's comments: Queensland schools in the 50s and 60s had port racks, the veranda shelves on which kids put their school bags. My husband says in the 40s, schools had hat and bag hooks. Perhaps "port" arrived after the 40s.
Contributor's comments: This was definately used in the Hunter more than Sydney.
Contributor's comments: Port was used in the Upper Hunter region to refer to a small case "portabello" used by primary school kids. We were from Vic and have never heard the term outside NSW. Your definition of port includes all types of suit cases.
Contributor's comments: My younger days were in Victoria and Southern NSW, where suitcase was the only term I had heard used. In 1968 I moved to New Guinea for a couple of years, working with a number of Queenslanders who used the word port, without exception. I too have adopted the word.
Contributor's comments: I never heard port used by locals anywhere in NSW. It is a Qld term and its use in NSW causes amusement and confusion. I remember a sign in McCullough's buses in Warwick (4370) in the '60s - "Keep ports, packages and feet off seats".
Contributor's comments: More likely rural than metropolitan usage.
Contributor's comments: I was surprised to see that the word port (for suitcase) is not restricted to Queensland.
Contributor's comments: At school in central west NSW during 1960s and 70s we had school ports, but I also seem to remember you took your port with you when you went on holidays as well ...
Contributor's comments: I always heard this expression used when I went to primary school at Tanja in the Bega Valley Shire in the 1970's and again at Bega High School in the 1980's. I always understood it to refer to the old-style brown fibre board suitcases with the plastic reinforcing on the corners. I also understood that it was a derivative of the French word portmanteau.
Contributor's comments: Hmmm ... begs the question: what do Southerners call a "port rack"?
Contributor's comments: When I was growing up in Sydney's Sutherland Shire during the 60's we used port routinely to mean any suitcase or schoolbag with handles, but not other kinds of bag or satchel.
Contributor's comments: [Central West NSW] school bag or suitcase: "You pack your books in a port to take them to school."
Contributor's comments: School case; "port" was used in the early '70's when I attended primary and secondary school in the Penrith area of western sydney. It was considered a formal term and decidely uncool.
Contributor's comments: Suitcase, not necessarily children's school case. My late grand mother and her family used the word - they came from Bourke. I had never heard the word in Sydney: "Don't leave your port at the station."
Contributor's comments: I had a teacher when I went to primary school in Canberra in the early 60s who referred to schoolbags as ports. He was then middle-aged and had taught extensively at country schools around NSW.
Contributor's comments: I grew up in the Hunter Valley of NSW and port was the word I recall older people, such as my grandparents and my friends parents, using for a case. I was pleased, about 20 years ago, when visiting Coffs Harbour with a doubting Sydney friend to see a sign, "Ports" designating the luggage section of a general store. (Was it a "general store"? It had clothing, luggage, knives, leather goods ...")
Contributor's comments: Growing up in Maclean on the far north coast the case used to carry our belongings to and from school was never known as anything else except a port. Many of the oldies to this day still refer to any case as a port.
Contributor's comments: I grew up in Sydney and was brought up with the word 'Port' although I realise it was not common usage. My mother was from the North Coast of NSW and I'm sure it was her that influenced me. It's a favourite word of mine.
Contributor's comments: I lived in Albury until 8 years old, where we used the term 'port' for any suitcase, or school bag. We then moved to Goulburn, where the term wasn't used at all. I always understood it to be a Victorianism that had crept over the border into Albury.
Contributor's comments: I grew up in Brisbane, and the word 'port' was used specifically to mean the bag used to carry my school books and lunch. When I moved to Sydney aged 12, no-one in my school knew the term!
Contributor's comments: I lived in QLD for 20 years from the early 70's, and I used to carry my port to school.
Contributor's comments: In Orange NSW where I lived till mid 70's we used to call our Globite school case a port, and you were also told to 'pack your port' if you were in trouble. My wife from Sydney and Coffs Harbour called hers a case.S he packs a case to go on holidays. I thought it came from portage (to carry)?
Contributor's comments: In Merriwa, I used to take my 'port' to school. It was usually used to describe a Globite port, but was also used more generally to describe any bag taken to school. I had a satchel at one stage which was a firm box with straps on it so that it could be worn on my back. It had a stiff lid which lifted up at the top.
Contributor's comments: Most of my schooling was in the 80's in Maroochydore and in both Primary and High School we had Ports and port racks. I live in NZ now and combine that with togs and peanut paste and it's very easy to confuse folks.
Contributor's comments: This seems to be only used by Queenslanders. I believe it's derived from 'portmanteau' - a small case, but why? who knows??
Contributor's comments: My grandmother spent most of her life in Cairns, she arrived with her family from Ireland at age 3. She always called her suitcase her 'port'.
Contributor's comments: "port" in Tasmania. I migrated to Hobart from England in 1963. Port was the usual word for a suitcase, but I didn't notice it being used for schoolbags. I had never heard this usage in England.
Contributor's comments: I was born and raised in Bundaberg in Queensland. I always took a 'port' to school and 'packed a port' when I was going on holidays. I always thought it was a Queensland term.
Contributor's comments: My grandfather, who was driver on the NSW Railways in the 1950s, used this term naturally to mean his Gladstone bag. Other forms of bag, suitcase and Globite could be covered too. It seems to have been limited to NSW and Qld railway workers, and to have died out in the 1960s. I lived in Albury and Canberra then, and never found the word in use there even by railway 'porters', who handled 'cases' or 'luggage'...
Contributor's comments: As a teacher in Qld I had to stop calling them "ports" because of the funny looks I'd get from southerners. I fear the term is dying out, as most kids have backpacks now anyway. The secondary meaning of "port" for luggage is also dying, but not as fast. "bag racks" are taking over from "port racks" in Qld schools.
Contributor's comments: I'd never heard of a bag being a port until I moved to QLD in 1995. As a teacher I now ask the kids if they've bought a ship to school if they want to go to the port racks. The joke can wear thin with the high usage by QLD'érs of 'port'. Many have ships it would seem!
Contributor's comments: Grew up in Qld, "Ports" were always ports, we all had school ports, we packed our ports for holidays, threw our ports in the back of the tilly (never a "ute"). Was bemused when I arrived in Western Australia and found that people didn't know what a port was. They all said "suitcases".
Contributor's comments: In Queensland, the railway porter handled our ports. What are "porters" called in the lesser States? Casers?
Contributor's comments: The first time I heard the word port was as a pupil in Moree from 1983 - 1986. Port was used for all types of school bags - from the hard square shaped case style bag to soft canvas bags. Port is still in common useage in Gunnedah, and people refer to "packing a port" for a weekend away.
Contributor's comments: I grew up in south-west Queensland in the 70s and early 80s. We always called our school bags our school ports, there were port racks to put them on outside the classroom. We also called suitcases ports. Both the school port and the larger port were usually of the hard cardboard variety with plastic on each corner.
Contributor's comments: In Merriwa, I had a satchel for my first year of school. From then on, I had a port, usually a globite one with a handle. When I went away to boarding school in Sydney, port also referred to the large suitcase in which I packed my clothes. No one else at school called them ports - cases was the most common word used.
Contributor's comments: My late father went to school with George Johnson but my father never used 'port'. Dad always used 'suitcase'. Presumably George picked up the use of 'port' when he went north (perhaps PNG during the war).
Contributor's comments: school bag: "Have you taken your port home?"
Contributor's comments: The word is an abbreviation of "portmanteau". It was applied to any small bag or briefcase, including a child's school bag or lunch box with handle in Armidale NSW In the late 1960's. The word was understood to be a Qld term that had migrated south.
Contributor's comments: In SE QLD our 50's & 60's school bags (mini cardboard-like suitcases) were ports and we also called the suitcase luggage for holidays ports too. The bag with a shoulder strap & zip top we used for school sports gear was called a "haversack".
Contributor's comments: Port is an exclusively Queensland word for 'suitcase' or schoolbag, as in 'school port'.
Contributor's comments: I moved to Southport, Qld from Adelaide in the early 70s and began primary school there. I still remember my parents explaining to me that in this strange, new world, school bags were referred to as "ports" -- and it was true. I returned to Adelaide in 1975 and have not heard the word "port" used in this way since.
Contributor's comments: I first heard the word "port" used to describe a suit case when visiting relatives in Home Hill Queensland in the 1970s. In recent times, people hailing from Ingham and Mackay have referred to a suitcase as a port. I think historically, it was used in many other places but remains a favoured word in NQ today.
Contributor's comments: I went to high school in Brisbane 1992- 1996 and had never heard the word 'port' before we arrived from Sydney. Kids don't refer to their bags as ports anymore, but some older teachers did. However, we all still used to talk about 'putting our bags on the port racks'.
Contributor's comments: Used extensively throughout Queensland instead of suitcase as well as for school bag.
Contributor's comments: Used in rural Victoria in the 1900's.
Contributor's comments: I grew up in Guyra NSW. We always said "Have you packed your port?" When somebody was getting ready to leave for school or holidays.
Contributor's comments: The word "port" has certainly raised a lot of comments. I grew up in Melbourne and we always used the word "case" or "suitcase". I first came across the word "port" when travelling to Sydney on the train in the 1970's. A fellow passenger boarded at Wagga or Junee and referred to his "port". From this I always thought that the usage line for "port' was north of about Wagga, but it may have been throughout the Riverina. One of the other contributors asked "What do Southerners call "port racks". The answer of course is "luggage racks".
Contributor's comments: Having grown up in the Ipswich Area and of Irish born parents, our school bags and suit cases of any sort were always called ports. And still are. Port racks were outside the class room. At the air port you collect your port from the baggage carosel. Interstate and overseas rellies think we are odd putting books and clothes in a 'port'.
Contributor's comments: Who said Queenslanders weren't cultured! 'Port' is from the French 'porte-manteau' -
Contributor's comments: As a kid growing up on the Atherton Tablelands in North Queensland, I would be admonished by my mother to "pack my port ready for school". On the other hand, before going to bed or setting of for a trip we were told not to forget to "unpack your port" meaning to make sure our bladder was empty.
Contributor's comments: My Grandmother lived in Newcastle in NSW and used the word 'port' to mean a suitcase or school case. I grew up in Sydney but never heard this word there. Even when I was a child it seemed to me to be a very distinct regionalism and also to be related to social class. I doubt that any middle class people, even in Newcastle, ever talked about 'ports' in this way.
Contributor's comments: At school in inner city Brisbane in the late 50s through to the late 60s, we ALL talked of our school ports. In the early years at school, these were often made of stiff cardboard and worn as back packs, but later on, they were replaced by the 'Globite' port. When school-age children went on a school camp, a train journey (etc) it was common then for them to 'pack their port' (ie use the same port for hols as for school). When a friend of ours moved to Adelaide in 1963, then Melbourne in 1964, we were shocked to hear her talking of 'cases' rather than ports, and 'bathers' rather than togs!
Contributor's comments: I have heard "port" used by an old family friend in Albury, N.S.W., so it has south than previously suggested.
Contributor's comments: To suggest that the word arrived in Queensland post-1940's is plain wrong. During the 1930's, it was universally used in place of "suitcase", both by my relatives from Townsville and everyone I knew in southern Qld. Anyone using the word "suitcase" was, by definition, "a Southerner".
Port
contraction of a place name e.g. Port Macquarie or Port Adelaide: "We are going to Port" (confusing if you have rellies in more than one)
Contributor's comments: When I was a child (1960s) we used to stay at my aunt's weekender at "the Port", which referred to Port Hacking (just south of Cronulla) in Sydney.