- A portmanteau word is a blend of two or more words, or parts of words, that expresses the combined meaning of those words.
- These are called “portmanteau” words. The word “portmanteau” originally meant a sort of large traveling bag.
- A one-sentence definition is easy enough: a portmanteau word is, in summary, a word that has been formed by blending two existing words together.
- But in English, the word portmanteau also has a second and different meaning, one that refers to a type of word rather than to a suitcase.
- Portmanteau, on the other hand, shares the same semantic features. For example, the word “brunch” is formed by splicing two words “breakfast” and “lunch.”
- The portmanteau definition describes a word formed by blending the sounds and meanings of at least two other words.
- 'Swatch' is a portmanteau word formed from Swiss watch, 'brunch' is formed from Breakfast and lunch.
- In music fandom, the word stan, which came into use after rapper Eminem released a song with the same name, is a portmanteau of stalker and fan.
- 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...
- In Through a Looking-Glass (1871) he wrote: ‘You see, it’s like a portmanteau … there are two meanings packed up in the one word’.