Portmanteau

A portmanteau (pronounced UK: /pO:t'm{nt@u/ , US: /pO:rt'm{ntou/, plural "portmanteaus") is a large travelling case made of leather.

In linguistics, a portmanteau word (also called a blend, portmanteau or frankenword) is a word that is formed by combining parts of other words. This meaning of the word was coined by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. For example, "smog" is a combination of the words "smoke" and "fog." Carroll used such words to humourous effect in his poems, especially "Jabberwocky." James Joyce used portmanteau words extensively in Finnegans Wake. Many corporate brand names and trademarks are portmanteaus. Indeed, "Wikipedia" itself is a portmanteau (of wiki and encyclopedia).

Portmanteau words are an important feature of fusional languages such as Latin.

See Also: acronym, neologism, list of portmanteaus, portmanteau film

External links

• See Portmanteau Words By Geoff Nunberg (http://www.parc.xerox.com/istl/members/nunberg/portmanteau.html) for an interesting commentary on this subject.
• Wiktionary: Portmanteau (http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Portmanteau)