Word of the Day: Portmanteau
Definition: “made up from different components”.
Portmanteau stems from the French “portemanteau,” a travelling case or bag for clothes and other necessaries with two compartments that open into one. (…)
As an adjective portmanteau can be used to describe a combination or melding of several things into a single item, characteristic, quality, etc. This usage was coined by Lewis Carroll in “Through the Looking Glass” when Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice the meaning of the strange words in the nonsense poem Jabberwocky:
“Well, ‘slithy’ means ‘lithe’ and ‘slimy’… You see it’s like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.”
Klassische Beispiele: brunch, motel, smog. Ein grenzwertigerer Beispiel ist twitturgy (aus Twitter und Liturgy – “the trend of sending Twitter messages to family and friends while attending a church service.”)
[via OWAD]
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