Port, n.
 1. A place where ships may ride secure from storms; a sheltered inlet, bay, or cove; a harbor; a haven. Used also figuratively.
    Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads.   --Shak.
    We are in port if we have Thee.   --Keble.
 2. In law and commercial usage, a harbor where vessels are admitted to discharge and receive cargoes, from whence they depart and where they finish their voyages.
 Free port. See under Free.
 Port bar. Naut, (a) A boom. See Boom, 4, also Bar, 3. (b) A bar, as of sand, at the mouth of, or in, a port.
 Port charges Com., charges, as wharfage, etc., to which a ship or its cargo is subjected in a harbor.
 Port of entry, a harbor where a customhouse is established for the legal entry of merchandise.
 Port toll Law, a payment made for the privilege of bringing goods into port.
 Port warden, the officer in charge of a port; a harbor master.


 port of entry
      n : a port where customs officials are stationed to oversee the
          entry and exit of people and merchandise [syn: {point of
          entry]