different between portion vs space

English

Etymology

From Middle English porcioun, borrowed from Old French porcion, from Latin portio (“a share, part, portion, relation, proportion”), akin to pars (“part”); see part. Compare proportion.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?p????n/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?p????n/
• (Scotland, Ireland, other varieties without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /?po????n/, /?po????n/, /?po???n/
• Rhymes: -??(?)??n

Noun

portion (plural portions)

1. An allocated amount.
2. That which is divided off or separated, as a part from a whole; a separated part of anything.
3. One's fate; lot.
   • Man's portion is to die and rise again.

4. The part of an estate given or falling to a child or heir; an inheritance.
5. A wife's fortune; a dowry.
   • 1613, William Shakespeare, The Two Noble Kinsmen, V. iv. 31:

     Commend me to her, and to piece her portion / Tender her this.

Usage notes

Relatively formal, compared to the more informal part or more concrete and casual piece. For example, “part of the money” (both informal) but “portion of the proceeds” (both formal).

Synonyms

• part
• piece

Derived terms

• portionless
• proportion
• underportion

Translations

Verb

portion (third-person singular simple present portions, present participle portioning, simple past and past participle portioned)

1. (transitive) To divide into amounts, as for allocation to specific purposes.
2. (transitive) To endow with a portion or inheritance.
   • 1733, Alexander Pope, Epistle to Bathurst

     Him portioned maids, apprenticed orphans, blest.

Translations

Usage notes

• Particularly used as portion out.
• Relatively formal, compared to the more informal divide, divide up, or the casual divvy, divvy up.

Synonyms

• apportion
• divide, divide up
• divvy, divvy up

Derived terms

• portion off
• portion out

Further reading

• portion in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• portion in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin portionem (accusative singular of portio).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p??.sj??/

Noun

portion f (plural portions)

1. portion

Descendants

• ? Turkish: porsiyon

Further reading

• “portion” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• potiron

Interlingua

Noun

portion (plural portiones)

1. portion

Swedish

Pronunciation

Noun

portion c

1. serving, an helping of food

Declension

Related terms

• portionera

English

Etymology

From Middle English space, from Anglo-Norman space, variant of espace, espas et al., and Old French spaze, variant of espace, from Latin spatium, from Proto-Indo-European *speh?- 'to stretch, to pull'.

Pronunciation

• enPR: sp?s, IPA^(key): /spe?s/
• Hyphenation: space
• Rhymes: -e?s

Noun

space (countable and uncountable, plural spaces)

1. (heading) Of time.
   1. (now rare, archaic) Free time; leisure, opportunity. [from 14^thc.]
   2. A specific (specified) period of time. [from 14^thc.]
      • 1893, Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, Giles Corey

        I pray you, sirs, to take some cheers the while I go for a moment's space to my poor afflicted child.

      • 2007, Andy Bull, The Guardian, 20 October:

        The match was lost, though, in the space of just twenty minutes or so.
   3. An undefined period of time (without qualifier, especially a short period); a while. [from 15^thc.]
      • 1923, PG Wodehouse, The Inimitable Jeeves

        Even Comrade Butt cast off his gloom for a space and immersed his whole being in scrambled eggs.

2. (heading) Unlimited or generalized extent, physical or otherwise.
   1. Distance between things. [from 14^thc.]
      • 2001, Sam Wollaston, The Guardian, 3 November:

        Which means that for every car there was 10 years ago, there are now 40. Which means - and this is my own, not totally scientific, calculation - that the space between cars on the roads in 1991 was roughly 39 car lengths, because today there is no space at all.

   2. Physical extent across two or three dimensions; area, volume (sometimes for or to do something). [from 14^thc.]
      • 2007, Dominic Bradbury, The Guardian, 12 May:

        They also wanted a larger garden and more space for home working.

   3. Physical extent in all directions, seen as an attribute of the universe (now usually considered as a part of space-time), or a mathematical model of this. [from 17^thc.]
      • 1656, Thomas Hobbes, Elements of Philosophy, II

        Space is the Phantasme of a Thing existing without the Mind simply.

      • 1880, Popular Science, August:

        These are not questions which can be decided by reference to our space intuitions, for our intuitions are confined to Euclidean space, and even there are insufficient, approximative.

      • 2007, Anushka Asthana & David Smith, The Observer, 15 April:

        The early results from Gravity Probe B, one of Nasa's most complicated satellites, confirmed yesterday 'to a precision of better than 1 per cent' the assertion Einstein made 90 years ago - that an object such as the Earth does indeed distort the fabric of space and time.

   4. The near-vacuum in which planets, stars and other celestial objects are situated; the universe beyond the earth's atmosphere; outer space. [from 17^thc.]
      • 1901, HG Wells, The First Men in the Moon:

        After all, to go into outer space is not so much worse, if at all, than a polar expedition.

      • 2010, The Guardian, 9 August:

        The human race must colonise space within the next two centuries or it will become extinct, Stephen Hawking warned today.

   5. The physical and psychological area one needs within which to live or operate; personal freedom. [from 20^thc.]
      • 1996, Linda Brodkey, Writing Permitted in Designated Areas Only:

        Around the time of my parents' divorce, I learned that reading could also give me space.

      • 2008, Jimmy Treigle, Walking on Water

        "I care about you Billy, whether you believe it or not; but right now I need my space."

3. (heading) A bounded or specific extent, physical or otherwise.
   1. A (chiefly empty) area or volume with set limits or boundaries. [from 14^thc.]

      • Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, […]. Even such a boat as the Mount Vernon offered a total deck space so cramped as to leave secrecy or privacy well out of the question, even had the motley and democratic assemblage of passengers been disposed to accord either.

      • 2000, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Islam and Gender

        The street door was open, and we entered a narrow space with washing facilities, curtained off from the courtyard.

      • 2012, Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian, 16 July:

        Converted from vast chambers beneath the old Bankside Power Station which once held a million gallons of oil, the new public areas consist of two large circular spaces for performances and film installations, plus a warren of smaller rooms.

   2. (music) A position on the staff or stave bounded by lines. [from 15^thc.]
      • 1849, John Pyke Hullah, translating Guillaume Louis Bocquillon-Wilhem, Wilhelm's Method of Teaching Singing

        The note next above Sol is La; La, therefore, stands in the 2nd space; Si, on the 3rd line, &c.

      • 1990, Sammy Nzioki, Music Time

        The lines and spaces of the staff are named according to the first seven letters of the alphabet, that is, A B C D E F G.

   3. A gap in text between words, lines etc., or a digital character used to create such a gap. [from 16^thc.]
      • 1992, Sam H Ham, Environmental Interpretation

        According to experts, a single line of text should rarely exceed about 50 characters (including letters and all the spaces between words).

      • 2005, Dr BR Kishore, Dynamic Business Letter Writing:

        It should be typed a space below the salutation : Dear Sir, Subject : Replacement of defective items.

   4. (letterpress typography) A piece of metal type used to separate words, cast lower than other type so as not to take ink, especially one that is narrower than one en (compare quad). [from 17^thc.]
      • 1683, Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises: Or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the art of Printing., v.2, pp.240–1:

        If it be only a Single Letter or two that drops, he thru?ts the end of his Bodkin between every Letter of that Word, till he comes to a Space: and then perhaps by forcing tho?e Letters closer, he may have room to put in another Space or a Thin Space; which if he cannot do, and he finds the Space ?tand Loo?e in the Form; he with the Point of his Bodkin picks the Space up and bows it a little; which bowing makes the Letters on each ?ide of the Space keep their parallel di?tance; for by its Spring it thru?ts the Letters that were clo?ed with the end of the Bodkin to their adjunct Letters, that needed no clo?ing.

      • 1979, Marshall Lee, Bookmaking, p.110:

        Horizontal spacing is further divided into multiples and fractions of the em. The multiples are called quads. The fractions are called spaces.

      • 2005, Phil Baines and Andrew Haslam, Type & Typography, 2nd ed., p.91:

        Other larger spaces – known as quads – were used to space out lines.

   5. A gap; an empty place. [from 17^thc.]
      • 2004, Harry M Benshoff (ed.), Queer Cinéma

        Mainstream Hollywood would not cater to the taste for sexual sensation, which left a space for B-movies, including noir.

      • 2009, Barbara L. Lev, From Pink to Green

        A horizontal scar filled the space on her chest where her right breast used to be.

   6. (geometry) A set of points, each of which is uniquely specified by a number (the dimensionality) of coordinates.
   7. (countable, mathematics) A generalized construct or set whose members have some property in common; typically there will be a geometric metaphor allowing these members to be viewed as "points". Often used with a restricting modifier describing the members (e.g. vector space), or indicating the inventor of the construct (e.g. Hilbert space). [from 20^thc.]

   8. (countable, figuratively) A marketplace for goods or services.

Quotations

• For more quotations using this term, see Citations:space.

Synonyms

• (free time): leisure time, spare time
• (specific period of time): duration, span; see also Thesaurus:period
• (undefined period of time): spell, while; see also Thesaurus:uncertain period
• (distance between things): break, gap; see also Thesaurus:interspace
• (intervening contents of a volume): volume
• (space occupied by or intended for a person or thing): room, volume
• (area or volume of sufficient size to accommodate a person or thing): place, spot, volume
• (area beyond the atmosphere of planets that consists of a vacuum): outer space
• (gap between written characters): blank, gap, whitespace (graphic design)
• (metal type): quad, quadrat
• (set of points each uniquely specified by a set of coordinates):
• (personal freedom to think or be oneself):
• (state of mind one is in when daydreaming):
• (generalized construct or set in mathematics):
• (one of the five basic elements in Indian philosophy): ether

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

See also

Punctuation

Verb

space (third-person singular simple present spaces, present participle spacing, simple past and past participle spaced)

1. (obsolete, intransitive) To roam, walk, wander.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.ii:

     But she as Fayes are wont, in priuie place / Did spend her dayes, and lov'd in forests wyld to space.

2. (transitive) To set some distance apart.

   Faye had spaced the pots at 8-inch intervals on the windowsill.

   The cities are evenly spaced.

3. To insert or utilise spaces in a written text.

   This paragraph seems badly spaced.

4. (transitive, science fiction) To eject into outer space, usually without a space suit.

   The captain spaced the traitors.
5. (intransitive, science fiction) To travel into and through outer space.

Derived terms

• spaced
• spaced-out
• unspace

Translations

Related terms

• espace
• spacious
• spatial

References

• space on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• -scape, EAPCs, EPACs, a-spec, aspec, capes, paces, scape

Old French

Noun

space m (oblique plural spaces, nominative singular spaces, nominative plural space)

1. Alternative form of espace