- harbor
- harbor n Harbor, haven, port are comparable because they have at one time or another meant a place where ships may ride secure from storms.Harbor applies to a portion of a large body of water (as the sea) that is partially or almost wholly enclosed so that ships or boats may enter it for safety from storms or may be anchored or moored there in security{
two promontories whose points come near together enclose the harbor
}{the great natural harbor at Sydney, Australia
}In extended uses harbor carries over the notion of quiet and safety inherent in its basic use{the beauty and the harbor of a snug house— Le Sueur
}Haven is chiefly literary or occurs in names of towns and cities where a natural harbor (as a bay, an inlet, or a river mouth) exists and where boats may go for safety during a storm{MiIford Haven in south Wales
}{a blessed haven into which convoys could slip from the submarine-infested Atlantic— Stewart Beach
}More than the other words here considered, it connotes a refuge or place of quiet in the midst of storms{my ... only haven ... is in the arms of death— Carlyle
}{the Colony acquired an unsavory reputation for providing a friendly haven for pirates— Amer. Guide Series: R.I.
}Port denotes both a place of security for ships and one suitable for landing men or goods{to set me safe ashore in the first port where we arrived— Swift
}Consequently, in extended use, it suggests a destination or goal{me . . . always from port withheld, always distressed— Cowper
}In commercial use port applies to a place, sometimes a harbor, sometimes, especially in place-names, a city or town and its harbor, but still more often in the case of the great ports of transatlantic and transpacific shipping all the approaches, all the inlets, all the facilities (as docks, wharves, and offices) involved in the business of loading and unloading ships or of embarking and disembarking passengers{the ports of New York, Cherbourg, and Southampton
}harbor vb Harbor, shelter, entertain, lodge, house, board are comparable when they mean to provide a place (as in one's home, quarters, or confines) where someone or something may stay or be kept for a time.Harbor usually implies provision of a place of refuge especially for a person or an animal that is evil or hunted or noxious{harbor thieves
}{cellars that harbor rats and cockroaches
}{deportation ... is simply a refusal by the Government to harbor persons whom it does not want— Justice Holmes
}{what good is he? Who else will harbor him at his age for the little he can do?— Frost
}In its extended sense the term suggests the receiving into and cherishing in one's mind of thoughts, wishes, or designs and especially of those that are evil or harmful{nothing is more astonishing to me than that people . . . should be capable of harboring such weak superstition— Pope
}{I did not wish him to know that I had suspected him of harboring any sinister designs— Hudson
}Shelter, more often than harbor, takes for its subject the place or the thing that affords (as distinguished from the person that supplies) protection or a place of retreat; it also distinctively suggests a threat to one's comfort or safety (as by the elements, by pursuers or attackers, or by a bombardment); the term further suggests, as harbor does not, a covering or screening{in such a season born, when scarce a shed could be obtained to shelter him or me from the bleak mr— Milton
}{in Craven's Wilds is many a den, to shelter persecuted men— Wordsworth
}{sycamore trees sheltered the old place from the north and west— Gogarty
}{wouldn't you like to shelter somebody in danger, or attempt a rescue, or do something heroic?— Black
}Entertain basically implies the giving of hospitality to a person as a guest at one's table or in one's home. The term often suggests special efforts to provide for his pleasure and comfort{be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares— Heb 13:2
}In its extended sense [i]entertain, like harbor, implies admission into the mind, and consequent consideration, of ideas, notions, and fears, but unlike harbor, apart from the context it carries no connotations of their good or evil, benign or noxious, character, or of any prolonged dwelling upon them, or even of deep and serious consideration{it had been Eudora's idea that jealousy had gone out. It wasn't entertained by smart people; it was bourgeois— Mary Austin
}{no proposal having for its object the readmission of Master Byron to the academy could be entertained— Shaw
}{her brothers and sister privately entertained a theory that their mother was rather a simpleton— Sackville-West
}Lodge (see also RESIDE) implies the supplying or affording a habitation, often a temporary habitation; often it suggests provision merely of a place to sleep and carries no implications of feeding or entertaining{Mrs. Brown will lodge three of the party for the weekend
}{every house was proud to lodge a knight— Dryden
}In the extended use of this sense lodge may imply reception as if of a guest or denizen, not only, like harbor, into the mind but into anything thought of as a receptacle or as a place where a thing may be deposited or imbedded{the isolated, small family unit of the patriarchal type, with formal authority lodged in the father— Dollard
}{so fair a form lodged not a mind so ill— Shak.
}{a song . . . had lodged in his memory like a cork stuck fast from the tide in the cleft of shore rock— Victor Canning
}House usually implies the shelter of a building with a roof and side walls that affords protection from the weather{he could find no place in the village to house his family suitably
}{the rich man has fed himself, and dressed himself, and housed himself as sumptuously as possible— Shaw
}{house gardening implements in a shed
}{house an art collection in the new library building
}House is somewhat rare in extended use, but it usually implies enclosing or confining in a particular place{the universal does not attract us until housed in an individual— Emerson
}{so timorous a soul housed in so impressive a body— Long
}Board may mean to provide a person with meals at one's table{we cannot lodge and board a dozen or fourteen gentlewomen— Shak.
}{the question is, will she board as well as lodge her guest?— Clara Morris
}but often it implies provision of both room and meals for compensation{Mrs. Jones boards four teachers at her home
}{four teachers board at Mrs. Jones's
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
