portal

Portal is a word with several related meanings. In architecture, a portal is an entrance or door, often a grand or ceremonial doorway in a building, church, or monument. The term comes from Latin porta meaning gate. Portals may be decorative frames, and portals can have arches, lintels, or sculptural elements.

In computing, a portal is a website or service that provides a single point of access to a range of resources or applications. Web portals deliver personalized content, search, and tools for a defined audience, such as employees, customers, or citizens. Examples include corporate portals and government or educational portals.

In science fiction and fantasy, a portal is a hypothetical gateway that connects two distant locations, times, or dimensions, allowing instant travel or communication. The concept is closely linked to wormholes and teleportation in fiction.

In medicine, portal commonly refers to the portal venous system, especially the hepatic portal vein that carries blood from the digestive organs to the liver. The term appears in phrases such as portal hypertension or portal circulation.

Portal is also the title of a widely known video game released in 2007 by Valve Corporation. It is a puzzle-platform game that centers on using a device to create inter-spatial portals to solve challenges.