Definition of "portative" [por•ta•tive]

• Portable. (adjective)
• Capable of or used in carrying. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "There are also a third of the books and half the number of items found in Urbino's cabinets. 26 Although music remains the dominant discipline, with 13 instruments evenly dispersed and an opened manuscript in a northwest cabinet,27 only a portative organ is readily at hand."
• "Note 32: It is difficult to determine whether there is an unoccupied hook at the top of the cabinet above the portative organ. back"
• "The painting portrays Renaissance instruments with great accuracy: a tenor or alto shawm, a precursor of the English horn; a Gothic harp; a brass trumpet; a portative organ; a vielle, an early form of violin; a soprano or treble shawm, a distant forerunner of the oboe; a lute; three recorders; a dulcimer being struck by a light hammer; and a harp."