Foris
A door or entrance
Foris (plural fores) is the most commonly used Latin term meaning a "door." The English word “door” is a word that does not appear to have a one-to-one translation into Latin that can be agreed upon by scholars. There are multiple words that come up throughout Latin literature that have been interpreted to mean “door,” but no consensus has been reached. One early Latin term that has been used to mean “door” is ostium (plural ostia), but this appears to have fallen out of use by the late Republican period. Based on its use in Latin literature, ostium appears to have denoted both the door and the doorway itself, making an English translation of “entrance with a door” perhaps more appropriate for ostium (International Styles, 2012). Others have interpreted ostium to denote interior doors, though this distinction is not universally acknowledged (Murray, 1875). The Latin words ianua (plural ianuae) and foris (plural fores) have also been used to denote “doors'' in ancient Rome. Both ianuae and fores appear to refer to the actual doors as opposed to the entire doorway. Aside from its more frequent use referring to “doors” in Latin literature, ianua is derived from the Roman god Janus (or Ianus), who was the god of doorways and beginnings (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019). Some wealthier houses also had attendants at their front doors, usually slaves, called the ianitor, from which the English “janitor” derives (Murray, 1875).
Bibliography
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019.
Latin Dictionary Entry
Foris - Perseus Digital Library
Jay Brodzeller, 2022