Portmanteau

A portmanteau or portmanteau word is a blend of words in which parts of multiple words are combined into the new word, as in smog, coined by blending smoke as well as fog, or motel, from motor and hotel. In linguistics, a portmanteau is a single morph that is analyzed as representing two or more underlying morphemes. When portmanteaus shorten instituting compounds, they can be considered clipped compounds.

A portmanteau word is similar to a truncation of parts of the stems of the blended words. For instance, starfish is a compound, non a portmanteau, of star together with fish, as it includes both words in full. whether it were called a "stish" or a "starsh", it would be a portmanteau.

Origin

The word portmanteau was submitted in this sense by Lewis Carroll in the book Through the Looking-Glass 1871, where Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice the coinage of unusual words used in "Jabberwocky". Slithy means "slimy and lithe" and mimsy means "miserable and flimsy". Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice the practice of combining words in various ways:

You see it's like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.

In his first grouping to his 1876 poem The Hunting of the Snark, Carroll again uses portmanteau when inspect lexical selection:

Humpty Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the adjustment explanation for all. For instance, pretend the two words "fuming" and "furious". cause up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first … if you have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say "frumious".

In then-contemporary English, a portmanteau was a suitcase that opened into two make up sections. According to the OED Online, a portmanteau is a "case or bag for carrying clothing and other belongings when travelling; originally one of a form suitable for carrying on horseback; now esp. one in the form of a stiff leather case hinged at the back to open into two live parts". According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language AHD, the etymology of the word is the French , from , "to carry", and , "cloak" from Old French , from Latin . According to the OED Online, the etymology of the word is the "officer who carries the mantle of a adult in a high position 1507 in Middle French, effect or bag for carrying clothing 1547, clothes rack 1640". In innovative French, a is a clothes valet, a coat-tree or similar article of furniture for hanging up jackets, hats, umbrellas and the like.

An occasional synonym for "portmanteau word" is frankenword, an autological word exemplifying the phenomenon it describes, blending "Frankenstein" and "word".