Portion

This word is often incorrectly used for part . A portion is properly a part a igned, allotted, set aside for a special purpose; a share, a division. The verb to portion means to divide, to parcel, to endow. We ask, therefore, "In what part [not, in what portion ] of the country, state, county, town, or street do you live?"—or, if we prefer grandiloquence to correctne , reside . In the sentence, "A large portion of the land is unfilled," the right word would be either part or proportion , according to the intention of the writer.