portmanteau word

Definition

A word which combines the meaning of two words (or, rarely, more than two words), formed by combining the words, usually, but not always, by adjoining the first part of one word and the last part of the other, the adjoining parts often having a common vowel.

Etymology

First used by Lewis Carroll in 1871, based on the concept of two words packed together, like a portmanteau (“a travelling case having two halves joined by a hinge”).

Example Sentences

• "Well, ‘slithy’ means ‘lithe and slimy.’ ‘Lithe’ is the same as ‘active.’ You see it’s like a portmanteau⸺there are two meanings packed up into one word."
• "He found the blend "tomax" in "a collection of gratulatory verses presented by the President and Fellows of Harvard College 1 to the new King, George III," dated 1761. A note by the owner of the volume explains the word as a combination of tomahawk and axe: "It is a portmanteau word, which must have been as clear to the average reader in England of 1761 — as clear to George III himself - as brillig and slithy would have been to us, had not Humpty Dumpty kindly explained them.""
• "1. Portmanteau Words and Allomorphy - This paper is primarily concerned with the theoretical implications of what have been called portmanteau words (Hockett, 1947)"