portmanteau

1 of 2

noun

port·​man·​teau pȯrt-ˈman-(ˌ)tō 

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

1

or portmanteau word plural portmanteau words : a word or part of a word made by combining the spellings and meanings of two or more other words or word parts (such as smog from smoke and fog)

A portmanteau of "costume" and "play," cosplay by definition is the act of dressing up as a fictional character, with many of the costumes you find inspired by video games, film, or TV.

—Stephanie LaCava

2

: a large suitcase

When the steamboat bumped against the … pilings, the crowd eased back to allow the hands to erect the gangplank and bear trunks and portmanteaux to the dock for passengers to claim.

—Loren D. Estleman

He bent down and pulled out the heavy portmanteau from under the bed. He opened it and took out a medium-size red bag …

—Helon Habila

portmanteau

2 of 2

adjective

: combining more than one element, use, or quality

As a book, it is essentially a portmanteau collection of aspects of martial life that caught Holmes's eye during his career.

—James Owen

The building of the embankment was a portmanteau scheme, defending valuable building land against high tides, providing space for sewers below, and for carriages and pedestrians above.

—Hermione Hobhouse

… the portmanteau character "Corporal Jones", an unlikely composite …

—Dale Clarke

The new work from Wes Anderson, "The French Dispatch," is a portmanteau film. That is to say, it contains a number of narratives—in this instance, four—that are neatly packed together, as if inside a suitcase.

—Anthony Lane

see also portmanteau word sense 1

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.

Synonyms

Noun

• carry-on
• carryall
• grip
• handbag
• holdall [chiefly British]
• suitcase
• traveling bag
• wallet

Examples of portmanteau in a Sentence

Noun

carried her possessions with her in an old portmanteau

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

In 1931, Paul's son Richard joined the company – Rimowa is a portmanteau of his name and Warenzeichen, the German term for trademark – and not long after, in 1937, the family embraced aluminium as a core material. —Felix Bischof, theweek, 10 Oct. 2024

Princeton’s Phresh Lemonade — a portmanteau of the initials of his first and last name — went from lemonade stand to a food trailer. —La Risa R. Lynch, Journal Sentinel, 7 Oct. 2024

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

Word History

Etymology

Noun

Middle French portemanteau, from porter to carry + manteau mantle, from Latin mantellum — more at port

First Known Use

Noun

1553, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Adjective

1909, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing portmanteau

• portmanteau film

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Kids Definition

portmanteau

noun

port·​man·​teau

pōrt-ˈman-tō,

pȯrt-

plural portmanteaus or portmanteaux

-tōz

: traveling bag