portmanteau

Noun

portmanteau (plural portmanteaus or portmanteaux)

1. A large travelling case usually made of leather, and opening into two equal sections.
   • 1667, Charles Croke, Fortune's Uncertainty:

     Rodolphus therefore finding such an earnest Invitation, embrac'd it with thanks, and with his Servant and Portmanteau, went to Don Juan's; where they first found good Stabling for their Horses, and afterwards as good Provision for themselves.

   • 1859, Charles Dickens, The Haunted House:

     He brought down with him to our haunted house a little cask of salt beef; for, he is always convinced that all salt beef not of his own pickling, is mere carrion, and invariably, when he goes to London, packs a piece in his portmanteau.

2. (Australia, dated) A school bag; often shortened to port or school port

Adjective

portmanteau (not comparable)

1. (used only before a noun, of a word, story, etc.) Made by combining two (or more) words, stories, etc., in the manner of a linguistic portmanteau.
   • 2002 December 14, Nicholas Lezard, “Spooky tales by the master and friends”, in The Guardian (London), page 30:

     The overall narrator of this portmanteau story - for Dickens co-wrote it with five collaborators on his weekly periodical, All the Year Round - expresses deep, rational scepticism about the whole business of haunting.

   • 2002 December 11, Nick Bradshaw, “One day in September”, in Time Out, page 71:

     We're so bombarded with images, it's a struggle to preserve our imaginations.' In response, he's turned to cinema, commissioning 11 film-makers to contribute to a portmanteau film, entitled '11'09"01' and composed of short films each running 11 minutes, nine seconds and one frame.

Noun

portmanteau (plural portmanteaus or portmanteaux)

1. (linguistics) A portmanteau word.
   • 1872, Lewis Carroll, “Chapter VI. Humpty Dumpty”, in Through The Looking Glass:

     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.

   • 1938 Conversion and Fusion in Modern English: A Concise History of the Scholarly Recognition of These Linguistic Processes by Joane Chaffe Miller

     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."

   • 1985 Selected Papers from the XIIIth Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages, Chapel Hill, N.C., 24-26 March 1983 page 287: "On the Representation of Higher Order Complex Words" by Carlos Piera of Cornell University.

     1. Portmanteau Words and Allomorphy - This paper is primarily concerned with the theoretical implications of what have been called portmanteau words (Hockett, 1947)

   Synonyms: blend, frankenword, portmanteau word

Derived terms

• portmanteau film
• portmanteau word

Noun

portmanteau (third-person singular simple present portmanteaus, present participle portmanteauing, simple past and past participle portmanteaued)

1. to make a portmanteau