Any Port in a Storm

A couple of years ago this blog reported on disport and comport but not on import or export or report. 

Report has five meanings in my dictionary. Four of the definitions refer to an account, announcement, or statement of an event, and the fifth is a loud noise like from a rifle. It came to English in the late 1300s. The noun word report came from the Old French with the same spelling and meant a pronouncement or a judgment. The Modern French word is rapport.

The verb form of the word report came from the Old French word reporter which meant to tell or relate.  The Middle French got reporter from the Latin word reportare, which meant to carry back or bring back. It was formed by adding the prefix re- to portare. Re- indicates “back” as in Latin as it does in English, and portare meant “to carry” or carry through or way through or passage. It is a cognate of portus, that means harbor or port, from which we get our English (and before that Old English) word port. The Latin word porta is another cognate, and means gate or door; it is the source of our word portal, that means gate or gateway, even though we got portal – again in the late 1300s – from the Old French word portal that they got from the Medieval Latin word portale which was formed from the Latin word porta.

Not much later (in the early 1400s) the Latin word importare, meaning “to bring in or convey” came into use in English to mean “convey information , express, or make known”, a very similar meaning to report. It was 1500 before it was first used to refer to that which was brought from abroad (into a port).  The noun import (meaning that which is imported) was not used until the 1680s, though the noun import (meaning consequence or meaning or purport) had been used for 100 years.

Export, on the other hand, is much more straightforward.  Since the 1610s it has basically had one meaning: to send or carry out or away.  It comes directly from the Latin word exportare, ex- being a prefix denoting “away.”  It was not until 1660 we encounter the first use of the word to relate to international shipping, and twenty years more until its first use in noun form.

I mentioned rapport earlier.  Our current meaning of connection or harmonious or sympathetic relation does not suggest a connection with the Modern French word rapport that is related to report. But as we already know the etymology it may be a surprise to learn it is not that straightforward. In the 1660s the French had taken the word rapporter, that means bring back or refer to, and was formed from the prefix re-  and the word for bring, apporter (from the Latin word apportare), and backformed the word rapport, meaning the way you carry yourself or your bearing, but also meaning yield, produce, harmony and agreement.

A definition of the noun import used the word purport. Purport has the meaning of presenting or appearing to be, or professing or claiming. It can be used as a noun or a verb, and both words came to English in the early 1400s from Anglo-French words (the verb from purporter and the noun from purport).  The Old French got the words from the Latin prefix pro- that means “forth.” So I purport that the word purport has the etymological meaning of “to put forth” and idea or claim.

The import of purport is reported to be exported when there is a rapport between ports. (I am not sure that sentence makes sense but it uses all of today’s words.)