portmanteau

1 of 2

noun

port·man·teau pȯrt-ˈman-(ˌ)tō

plural portmanteaus or portmanteaux pȯrt-ˈman-(ˌ)tōz

Synonyms of portmanteau next

: a large suitcase

: a word or morpheme whose form and meaning are derived from a blending of two or more distinct forms (such as smog from smoke and fog)

portmanteau

2 of 2

adjective

: combining more than one use or quality

: being a portmanteau

a portmanteau word

Did you know?

In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, Alice asks Humpty Dumpty to explain words from the nonsense poem "Jabberwocky" and is told that slithy is "like a portmanteau-there are two meanings packed up into one word." Although slithy hasn't caught on (it's made up of slimy and lithe, according to Humpty Dumpty), another portmanteau invented by Carroll has in fact found a place in the language: chortle (supposedly from chuckle and snort). English includes other portmanteaus, too, such as brunch (breakfast and lunch) and dramedy (drama and comedy). Following Carroll's lead, English speakers have come to call these fairly common words by the not-so-common name for a type of traveling bag with two compartments. The technical (and simpler) term for such words is blend.

Example Sentences

Noun carried her possessions with her in an old portmanteau

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

Confusingly, developers are calling the upgrades Shapella—a portmanteau of Shanghai and Capella—despite the proximity to the upgrade. —

Robert Stevens, Fortune Crypto, 8 Apr. 2023 At a mallpark — a portmanteau of a shopping mall, theme park and ballpark — visitors don’t just watch a baseball game, they’re entertained in myriad ways. —

Hayes Gardner, Baltimore Sun, 5 Apr. 2023 Both have a bezel enhanced, aesthetically, by a two-tone Cerachrom (a portmanteau of ceramic and chrome) insert in grey and black ceramic plus Jubilee bracelet. —

Nick Scott, Robb Report, 27 Mar. 2023 According to researchers, GeiwBot (a portmanteau of its gecko and worm influences) is the first of its kind to not require a hookup to an external power source. —

Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 27 Feb. 2023 Bollywood, a portmanteau of Bombay (the former name of Mumbai) and Hollywood was originally coined to describe Hindi cinema. —

Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 31 Jan. 2023 This word, a portmanteau of rectifier and antenna, reflects how each element converts the electromagnetic waves into direct-current electricity. —

IEEE Spectrum, 21 May 2022 There’s a relatively new Korean word that didn’t exist when Tablo was a child: umchina/엄친아, which is a portmanteau for 엄마 친구 아들/umma chingu adeul, or mother’s friend’s son. —

Jae-ha Kim, Rolling Stone, 31 Jan. 2023 Its third foray into portmanteau horror, The House That Dripped Blood, follows local police telling a Scotland Yard detective investigating the latest inhabitant of the house’s disappearance four separate stories about previous inhabitants. —

Brooke Knisley, Vulture, 14 Apr. 2022

Adjective

So many of the words created our dozens of neologism contests over the decades are portmanteau words, the combination of two words. —

Washington Post, 18 July 2019 So many of the words created our dozens of neologism contests over the decades are portmanteau words, the combination of two words. —

Washington Post, 18 July 2019 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'portmanteau.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.