the.com/portmanteau
A word that moved in with another word and they never left.
means A new word made by blending the sounds and meanings of two other words into one, like 'brunch' from breakfast and lunch.
from From French 'porte-manteau' — 'carry' plus 'cloak' — originally a stiff traveling case that opened into two hinged halves to hold clothes. Lewis Carroll borrowed the image in 'Through the Looking-Glass,' having Humpty Dumpty explain that words like 'slithy' (lithe and slimy) pack two meanings into one word 'like a portmanteau' — two compartments folded into a single case. The luggage sense is now old-fashioned; the linguistic sense, born from Carroll's metaphor, is the one that stuck.
- origin
- French for a two-sided travel case
- coined by
- Lewis Carroll, in Through the Looking-Glass
- everyday proof
- brunch, smog, and motel are all portmanteaus
- not the same as
- compound words keep both halves whole