Portmanteau word
Encyclopedia
A portmanteau or portmanteau word is a blend
Blend
In linguistics, a blend is a word formed from parts of two or more other words. These parts are sometimes, but not always, morphemes.-Linguistics:...

 of two (or more) word
Word
In language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content . This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own...

s or morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...

s into one new word. A portmanteau word typically combines both sounds and meanings, as in smog, coined by blending smoke and fog. More generally, it may refer to any term or phrase that combines two or more meanings. In linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

, a portmanteau is defined as a single morph
Morph
- Astronomy :* Morphs collaboration, a collaboration that studied the evolution of spiral galaxies using the Magellan and the Hubble Space Telescope- Biology :...

 which represents two or more morphemes.

Meaning

"Portmanteau word" is used to describe a linguistic blend
Blend
In linguistics, a blend is a word formed from parts of two or more other words. These parts are sometimes, but not always, morphemes.-Linguistics:...

, namely "a word formed by blending sounds from two or more distinct words and combining their meanings." This definition overlaps with the grammatical
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...

 term contraction
Contraction (grammar)
A contraction is a shortened version of the written and spoken forms of a word, syllable, or word group, created by omission of internal letters....

, but a distinction can be made between a portmanteau and a contraction by noting that contractions are formed from words that would otherwise appear together in sequence, such as do and not, whereas a portmanteau word is typically formed by combining two or more existing words that all relate to a singular concept which the portmanteau word is meant to describe, such as Spanish and English, into "spanglish".

Origin

The word "portmanteau" was first used in this sense by Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...

 in the book Through the Looking-Glass
Through the Looking-Glass
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a work of literature by Lewis Carroll . It is the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...

 (1871), in which Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty is a character in an English language nursery rhyme, probably originally a riddle and one of the best known in the English-speaking world. He is typically portrayed as an egg and has appeared or been referred to in a large number of works of literature and popular culture...

 explains to Alice the coinage of the unusual words in Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky
"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense verse poem written by Lewis Carroll in his 1872 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...

, where "slithy" means "lithe and slimy" and "mimsy" is "flimsy and miserable". Humpty Dumpty explains the practice of combining words in various ways by telling Alice,
In his introduction to The Hunting of the Snark
The Hunting of the Snark
The Hunting of the Snark is usually thought of as a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll in 1874, when he was 42 years old...

, Carroll uses "portmanteau" when discussing lexical selection:
The word "portmanteau" itself was converted by Carroll to describe the concept. "Portmanteau" comes from French porter, to carry + manteau, cloak (from Old French mantel, from Latin mantellum). In then-contemporary English, a portmanteau was a suitcase. In modern French, a porte-manteau is a clothes valet
Clothes valet
Clothes valet, also called men's valet and valet stand, is an item of furniture on which clothes may be hung. Typical features of valets include trouser hangers, jacket hangers, shoe bars, and a tray organizer for miscellaneous, day-to-day objects like wallets and keys...

, a coat-tree or similar article of furniture for hanging up jackets, hats, umbrellas and the like.

Standard English

Many neologisms are examples of blends, but many blends have become part of the lexicon. In Punch
Punch (magazine)
Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...

 in 1896, the word brunch
Brunch
Brunch is a meal eaten between breakfast and lunch. The word is a portmanteau of breakfast and lunch.-Origin of the word:The 1896 supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary cites Punch magazine which wrote that the term was coined in Britain in 1895 to describe a Sunday meal for "Saturday-night...

 (breakfast + lunch) was introduced as a "portmanteau word". In 1964, the newly independent African republic of Tanganyika
Tanganyika
Tanganyika , later formally the Republic of Tanganyika, was a sovereign state in East Africa from 1961 to 1964. It was situated between the Indian Ocean and the African Great Lakes of Lake Victoria, Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika...

 and Zanzibar
Zanzibar
Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...

 chose the portmanteau word Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...

 as its name.

"Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...

" is an example of a portmanteau; it combines the word "wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...

" with the word "encyclopedia
Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....

".

Portmanteau words may be produced by joining together proper nouns with common nouns, such as "gerrymandering
Gerrymandering
In the process of setting electoral districts, gerrymandering is a practice that attempts to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating geographic boundaries to create partisan, incumbent-protected districts...

", which refers to the scheme of Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry
Elbridge Gerry
Elbridge Thomas Gerry was an American statesman and diplomat. As a Democratic-Republican he was selected as the fifth Vice President of the United States , serving under James Madison, until his death a year and a half into his term...

 for politically contrived redistricting; one of the districts created resembled a salamander
Salamander (legendary creature)
The salamander is an amphibian of the order Urodela. As with many real creatures, pre-modern authors often ascribed fantastic qualities to it , and in recent times some have come to identify a legendary salamander as a distinct concept from the real organism. This idea is most highly developed in...

 in outline. Bardolatry
Bardolatry
Bardolatry is a term that refers to the excessive adulation of William Shakespeare, a portmanteau of "bard" and "idolatry." Shakespeare has been known as "the Bard" since the nineteenth century. One who idolizes Shakespeare is known as a Bardolater....

, a portmanteau of "the bard" and "idolatry," means excessive worship of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 and his works.

Some city names are portmanteaux of the regions they straddle: Texarkana
Texarkana, Texas
Texarkana is a city in Bowie County, Texas, United States. It effectively functions as one half of a city which crosses a state line — the other half, the city of Texarkana, Arkansas, lies on the other side of State Line Avenue...

 spreads across the Texas-Arkansas-Louisiana border, while Calexico
Calexico, California
Calexico is a city in Imperial County, California. The population was 38,572 at the 2010 census, up from 27,109 at the 2000 census. Calexico is about east of San Diego and west of Yuma, Arizona...

 and Mexicali
Mexicali
Mexicali is the capital of the State of Baja California, seat of the Municipality of Mexicali, and 2nd largest city in Baja California. The City of Mexicali has a population of 689,775, according to the 2010 census, while the population of the entire metropolitan area reaches 936,826.The city...

 are respectively the American and Mexican sides of a single conurbation
Conurbation
A conurbation is a region comprising a number of cities, large towns, and other urban areas that, through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one continuous urban and industrially developed area...

. Kentuckiana
Kentuckiana
Kentuckiana is a name that is often used to refer to metropolitan areas with counties in both Indiana and Kentucky.* Louisville-Jefferson County, KY-IN Metropolitan Statistical Area, the area most commonly referred to as Kentuckiana...

, while generally used to specifically describe the Louisville metropolitan area
Louisville metropolitan area
The Louisville-Jefferson County, KY-IN Metropolitan Statistical Area, commonly called the Louisville metropolitan area or Kentuckiana, is the 42nd largest Metropolitan Statistical Area in the United States...

, is also used (although a bit more lightly) to describe the entire stretch of the Ohio Valley
Ohio River
The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...

 in the adjoining states of Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

 and Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

.

“Dom Pérignpong” combines the vintage champagne label “Dom Pérignon” with the popular drinking game “pong,” in which players throw a ping pong ball across a table with the intent of landing the ball in a cup of champagne.

Brand names

"Comcast
Comcast
Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...

" is a portmanteau of "communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...

" and "broadcast
Broadcast
Broadcast or Broadcasting may refer to:* Broadcasting, the transmission of audio and video signals* Broadcast, an individual television program or radio program* Broadcast , an English electronic music band...

". "Cinemax
Cinemax
Cinemax, sometimes abbreviated as simply "Max", is a collection of premium television networks that broadcasts primarily feature films, along with softcore erotica, original action series, documentaries and special behind-the-scenes features. Cinemax is operated by Home Box Office, Inc., a...

" is a portmanteau of "cinema
Cinema
Cinema may refer to:* Film, motion pictures or movies* Filmmaking, the process of making a film* Movie theater, a building in which films are shown* Cinema or Bommalattam, a Tamil film...

" and "maximum". "Verizon" is a portmanteau of "veritas
Veritas
In Roman mythology, Veritas, meaning truth, was the goddess of truth, a daughter of Saturn and the mother of Virtue. It was believed that she hid in the bottom of a holy well because she was so elusive. Her image is shown as a young virgin dressed in white...

" and "horizon
Horizon
The horizon is the apparent line that separates earth from sky, the line that divides all visible directions into two categories: those that intersect the Earth's surface, and those that do not. At many locations, the true horizon is obscured by trees, buildings, mountains, etc., and the resulting...

." "Panera" is a portmanteau of "pan," the Latin word for bread, and "era," the Latin word for time. "Accenture
Accenture
Accenture plc is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company headquartered in Dublin, Republic of Ireland. It is the largest consulting firm in the world and is a Fortune Global 500 company. As of September 2011, the company had more than 236,000 employees across...

" is often explained as a portmanteau of "accent
Accent
-Speech and language:* Accent , pronunciation characteristic of a certain locality* Accent , of a word* Stress , tone levels and emphasis used in many languages for words or grammar* A diacritical mark is also known as an accent....

" and "future
Future
The future is the indefinite time period after the present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the nature of the reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently exists and will exist is temporary and will come...

." Similarly "Finacle
Finacle
Finacle universal banking products are designed to address the core banking, e-banking, Islamic banking, treasury, wealth management and CRM requirements of retail, corporate and universal banks. It is developed by Infosys, and is one of the major players in the arena of core banking in Indian and...

", for a retail banking product of Infosys
Infosys
Infosys Limited, formerly Infosys Technologies Limited is a global technology services company headquartered in Bangalore, India. It is the second largest IT exporter in India with 133,560 employees as of March 2011. It has offices in 33 countries and development centers in India, China,...

, is a portmanteau of the words "Financial Pinnacle." The flavor of the cheese "Cambozola
Cambozola
Cambozola is a cow's milk cheese that is a combination of a French soft-ripened triple cream cheese and Italian Gorgonzola.-History:It was patented and industrially produced for the world market by large German company Champignon in the 1970s. The cheese was invented circa 1900 and is still...

" combines a similar rind to "Camembert
Camembert
Camembert is a commune in the Orne department in north-western France.It is most famous as the place where camembert cheese originated.Camembert has been called "The largest small village in France." This is because the area of the commune itself is out of proportion to the center of the village...

" with the same mold used to make "Gorgonzola
Gorgonzola
Gorgonzola is a comune in the province of Milan, part of Lombardy, northern Italy. Once a rural community, and famous for the cheese which bears its name, today it forms part of the Milanese conurbation and has three stops on the Milan Metro.- History :...

." A brand of water softening solution, "Calgon
Calgon
Calgon is a brand registered trademark of different corporations. The original product consisted of powdered sodium hexametaphosphate , which in water would complex with ambient calcium ion and certain other cations, preventing formation of unwanted salts and interference by those cations with the...

" is a portmanteau of the words "calcium" and "gone." Passenger rail company "Amtrak
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak , is a government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track". It is headquartered at Union...

" is a portmanteau of "America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

" and "track".

Non-standard English

Many portmanteau words receive some use but do not appear in all dictionaries. For example, a spork
Spork
A spork or a foon is a hybrid form of cutlery taking the form of a spoon-like shallow scoop with three or four fork tines. Spork-like utensils, such as the terrapin fork or ice cream fork, have been manufactured since the late 19th century; patents for spork-like designs date back to at least 1874,...

 is an eating utensil that is a combination of a spoon
Spoon
A spoon is a utensil consisting of a small shallow bowl, oval or round, at the end of a handle. A type of cutlery , especially as part of a place setting, it is used primarily for serving. Spoons are also used in food preparation to measure, mix, stir and toss ingredients...

 and fork
Fork
As a piece of cutlery or kitchenware, a fork is a tool consisting of a handle with several narrow tines on one end. The fork, as an eating utensil, has been a feature primarily of the West, whereas in East Asia chopsticks have been more prevalent...

. A skort
Skort
A skort, sometimes called a scooter or skant, resembles a skirt all the way around, and has shorts underneath. Some skorts are essentially skirts with a pair of shorts hidden underneath, though most resemble a pair of shorts with a panel of fabric over the front.-History:The term "skort" is used...

 is an item of clothing that is part skirt
Skirt
A skirt is a tube- or cone-shaped garment that hangs from the waist and covers all or part of the legs.In the western world, skirts are usually considered women's clothing. However, there are exceptions...

, part shorts
Shorts
Shorts are a bifurcated garment worn by both men and women over their pelvic area, circling the waist, and covering the upper part of the legs, sometimes extending down to or even below the knee, but not covering the entire length of the leg. They are called "shorts" because they are a shortened...

. The Pegacorn or a Unipeg is a fantasy creature that combines Pegasus
Pegasus
Pegasus is one of the best known fantastical as well as mythological creatures in Greek mythology. He is a winged divine horse, usually white in color. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as horse-god, and foaled by the Gorgon Medusa. He was the brother of Chrysaor, born at a single birthing...

 and unicorn
Unicorn
The unicorn is a legendary animal from European folklore that resembles a white horse with a large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead, and sometimes a goat's beard...

 to describe a winged unicorn
Unicorn
The unicorn is a legendary animal from European folklore that resembles a white horse with a large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead, and sometimes a goat's beard...

. A real creature that is a crossbred lion
Lion
The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...

 and tiger
Tiger
The tiger is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to and weighing up to . Their most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with lighter underparts...

 is called a liger
Liger
The liger is a hybrid cross between a male lion and a tigress . Thus, it has parents with the same genus but of different species. It is distinct from the similar hybrid tiglon. It is the largest of all known cats and extant felines.Ligers enjoy swimming, which is a characteristic of tigers, and...

 or a tiglon
Tiglon
A tiglon , tigon, and tion is a hybrid cross between a male tiger and a lioness . Thus, it has parents with the same genus but of different species. The tiglon is not currently as common as the converse hybrid, the liger; however, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, tiglons were more...

. In 2009, the term jeggings was coined to describe a pair of pants with the appearance of denim jeans, but the stretchiness of leggings. Portmanteaus are also commonly utilized in avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 scientific and literary theory; the word "stragmatics," for example, is increasingly employed in the context of posthuman factors
Posthuman factors
Posthuman Factors is a strategically pragmatic approach to design, operating as an intuitive extension of posthuman theory in action. First articulated by Haakon Faste in his doctoral dissertation and subsequent writings on perceptual robotics and art, posthuman factors uses human-centered design...

 research to address the strategic pragmatics of pragmatic strategies (i.e., strategies that are intrinsically realized by being arrived at by pragmatic means).

"Jeoportmanteau!" is a recurring category on the American television quiz show
Quiz Show
Quiz Show is a 1994 American historical drama film produced and directed by Robert Redford. Adapted by Paul Attanasio from Richard Goodwin's memoir Remembering America, the film is based upon the Twenty One quiz show scandal of the 1950s...

 Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...

. The category's name is itself a portmanteau of the words "Jeopardy" and "portmanteau". Responses in the category are portmanteaus constructed by fitting two words together. For example, the clue "Brett Favre
Brett Favre
Brett Lorenzo Favre is a former American football quarterback who spent the majority of his career with the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League . He was a 20-year veteran of the NFL, having played quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons , Green Bay Packers , New York Jets and Minnesota...

 or John Elway
John Elway
John Albert Elway, Jr. is a former American football quarterback and currently is the executive vice president of football operations for the Denver Broncos of the National Football League . He played college football at Stanford and his entire professional career with the Denver Broncos...

 plus a knapsack" yielded the response "What is a 'quarterbackpack'?"

Blaxploitation
Blaxploitation
Blaxploitation or blacksploitation is a film genre which emerged in the United States circa 1970. It is considered an ethnic sub-genre of the general category of exploitation films. Blaxploitation films were originally made specifically for an urban black audience, although the genre's audience...

 is a film genre/style, whose name derives from a portmanteau of "black" and "exploitation", reflecting its main theme of social problems, along with the stereotypical depiction of Black people in film.

In the comic strip Li'l Abner
Li'l Abner
Li'l Abner is a satirical American comic strip that appeared in many newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe, featuring a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished town of Dogpatch, Kentucky. Written and drawn by Al Capp , the strip ran for 43 years, from August 13, 1934 through...

, the central characters' surname, Yokum, is a portmanteau of the words yokel
Yokel
Yokel is a derogatory term referring to the stereotype of unsophisticated country people.-Stereotype:In the US, it is used to describe someone living in rural areas...

 and hokum
Hokum
Hokum is a particular song type of American blues music - a humorous song which uses extended analogies or euphemistic terms to make sexual innuendos...

.

Turducken
Turducken
A turducken is a dish consisting of a de-boned chicken stuffed into a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed into a de-boned turkey. The word turducken is a portmanteau of turkey, duck, and chicken or hen....

 is a dish made by inserting a chicken into a duck, and thence into a turkey. In this way, the food reflects the portmanteau nature of the name. The word turducken was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2010 along with refudiate, coined by Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin
Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice-presidency.She was...

 from refute and repudiate.

In music fandom, the word stan, which came into use after rapper Eminem
Eminem
Marshall Bruce Mathers III , better known by his stage name Eminem or his alter ego Slim Shady, is an American rapper, record producer, songwriter and actor. Eminem's popularity brought his group project, D12, to mainstream recognition...

 released a song
Stan (song)
"Stan" is the third single from The Marshall Mathers LP, by rapper Eminem featuring Dido. It peaked at number one in the United Kingdom and Australia. It is also included on Curtain Call: The Hits, performed with Eminem and Dido as well track 17 on Curtain Call: The Hits as a live Performance from...

 with the same name, is a portmanteau of stalker
Stalking
Stalking is a term commonly used to refer to unwanted and obsessive attention by an individual or group to another person. Stalking behaviors are related to harassment and intimidation and may include following the victim in person and/or monitoring them via the internet...

 and fan
Fan (person)
A Fan, sometimes also called aficionado or supporter, is a person with a liking and enthusiasm for something, such as a band or a sports team. Fans of a particular thing or person constitute its fanbase or fandom...

.

On the TV Show 30 Rock, Tina Fey created the word Snart which combines 'fart' and 'sneeze' and a snart is the action of a simultaneous occurrence. This appeared on the TV show 30 Rock in approximately February, 2011 on NBC

Comedian Tim Allen described an exceedingly deep belch could result in partially regurgitating as a vomit-burp, immediately calling it a "vurp"

Name-meshing

Two proper names can also be used in creating a portmanteau word in reference to the partnership between people, especially in cases where both persons are well-known, or sometimes to produce epithet
Epithet
An epithet or byname is a descriptive term accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title...

s such as "Billary" (referring to former United States president Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

 and his wife, United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the...

). In this example of recent American political history, the purpose for blending is not so much to combine the meanings of the source words but "to suggest a resemblance of one named person to the other;" the effect is often derogatory, as linguist Benjamin Zimmer
Benjamin Zimmer
Benjamin Zimmer is an American linguist and lexicographer. He is the executive producer of the Visual Thesaurus and Vocabulary.com. He was the "On Language" columnist for The New York Times Magazine from March 2010 to February 2011 and formerly a research associate at the University of...

 notes. In contrast, the public and even the media use portmanteaux to refer to their favorite pairings as a way to "...giv[e] people an essence of who they are within the same name." This is particularly seen in cases of fictional and real-life "supercouple
Supercouple
A supercouple or super couple is a popular or financially wealthy pairing that intrigues and fascinates the public in an intense or even obsessive fashion...

s." An early and well-known example, Bennifer, referred to film stars Ben Affleck
Ben Affleck
Benjamin Géza Affleck-Boldt , better known as Ben Affleck, is an American actor, film director, writer, and producer. He became known with his performances in Kevin Smith's films such as Mallrats and Chasing Amy...

 and Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, and fashion designer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller...

. Other examples include Brangelina
Brangelina
Brangelina is a celebrity supercouple consisting of American actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Pitt has appeared in over 40 major films, including 12 Monkeys , Ocean's Eleven , and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button , while Jolie has appeared in over 30 major films, including Girl, Interrupted...

 (Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...

 and Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie is an American actress. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009 and 2011. Jolie is noted for promoting humanitarian causes as a Goodwill Ambassador for the...

) and TomKat (Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....

 and Katie Holmes
Katie Holmes
Katherine Noelle "Katie" Holmes is an American actress who first achieved fame for her role as Joey Potter on The WB television teen drama Dawson's Creek from 1998 to 2003. Her movie roles have included the blockbuster Batman Begins along with art house films such as The Ice Storm and thrillers...

). "Desilu Productions
Desilu Productions
Desilu Productions was a Los Angeles, California-based company jointly owned by actors Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, who were married to each other from 1940 to 1960....

" was a Los Angeles, California-based company jointly owned by couple and actors Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. In double-barreled names, the hyphen is almost pushing one name away from the other. Meshing says "I am you and you are me," notes one expert. In 2009, John and Edward Grimes (twins) followed the growing trend for celebrity portmanteau names when they entered the sixth series of The X-Factor (UK) under the name "Jedward
Jedward
John Paul Henry Daniel Richard Grimes and Edward Peter Anthony Kevin Patrick Grimes are an Irish hip pop duo. They are identical twins and perform under the name Jedward...

."

Chinese

Several Chinese province names are portmanteau words: Anhui
Anhui
Anhui is a province in the People's Republic of China. Located in eastern China across the basins of the Yangtze River and the Huai River, it borders Jiangsu to the east, Zhejiang to the southeast, Jiangxi to the south, Hubei to the southwest, Henan to the northwest, and Shandong for a tiny...

 is a contraction of Anqing
Anqing
Anqing is a prefecture-level city in southwestern Anhui province, East China. It borders Lu'an to the north, Chaohu to the northeast, Tongling to the east, Chizhou to the southeast, and the provinces of Jiangxi and Hubei to the south and west respectively....

 and Huizhou
Huizhou (region)
Huizhou is a historical region in southeastern China. It corresponds to the southernmost part of Anhui Province plus Wuyuan County in northeastern Jiangxi Province. Anhui, the name of the province, is a portmanteau word combining the first characters of Anqing and Huizhou.-Geography:Huizhou is a...

, Gansu
Gansu
' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...

 of Ganzhou
Ganzhou District
The Ganzhou District is one of 58 County-level divisions of Gansu Province. It is the seat of the Municipal region of Zhangye , whose executive, legislature and judiciary are here, together with the CPC and Public Security bureaux.-References:...

 and Suzhou
Suzhou District
The Suzhou District is an administrative district in Gansu, the People's Republic of China. It is one of 17 districts of Gansu.Suzhou District is part of the Jiuquan prefecture, and the seat of the prefecture government. Therefore, less-detailed modern maps typically mark Suzhou's location...

, and Jiangsu
Jiangsu
' is a province of the People's Republic of China, located along the east coast of the country. The name comes from jiang, short for the city of Jiangning , and su, for the city of Suzhou. The abbreviation for this province is "苏" , the second character of its name...

 is a contraction of Jiangning (ancient name of Nanjing
Nanjing
' is the capital of Jiangsu province in China and has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having been the capital of China on several occasions...

) and Suzhou
Suzhou
Suzhou , previously transliterated as Su-chou, Suchow, and Soochow, is a major city located in the southeast of Jiangsu Province in Eastern China, located adjacent to Shanghai Municipality. The city is situated on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Taihu Lake and is a part...

.

In 1927 the city of Wuhan
Wuhan
Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province, People's Republic of China, and is the most populous city in Central China. It lies at the east of the Jianghan Plain, and the intersection of the middle reaches of the Yangtze and Han rivers...

, capital of the Hubei Province
Hubei
' Hupeh) is a province in Central China. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Lake Dongting...

, was created by merging the three cities of Wuchang, Hankou
Hankou
Hankou was one of the three cities whose merging formed modern-day Wuhan, the capital of the Hubei province, China. It stands north of the Han and Yangtze Rivers where the Han falls into the Yangtze...

, and Hanyang into one city.

French

Although portmanteau is a borrowing from French (modern spelling: portemanteau), it is not used in French in this sense. It is indeed a false friend
False friend
False friends are pairs of words or phrases in two languages or dialects that look or sound similar, but differ in meaning....

. It literally means "coat carrier" and in Modern French refers to a coat stand or coat hook, but in the past it could also mean "suitcase". It was in this sense that it first came into English, and the metaphorical use for a linguistic phenomenon (putting one word inside another, as into a case) is an English coinage. The French linguistic term mot-valise, literally a "suitcase-word", is a relatively recent back-translation from English, attested only since 1970.

German

German Kofferwort is a recent literal translation of French mot-valise, attested since 1983. However the phenomenon is well known in German poetry. Heinrich Heine
Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine was one of the most significant German poets of the 19th century. He was also a journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Lieder by composers such as Robert Schumann...

 is believed to have coined over 60 portmanteaux. Another example is Berlin's KaDeWe, a portmanteau of "Kaufhaus des Westens" (Shop of the West).

Modern Hebrew

Modern Hebrew abounds with European mechanisms such as blending: Along with קומפקט דיסק (kompaktdisk, compact disc), Hebrew has the blend תקליטור (taklitor), which consists of the Hebrew-descent תקליט (taklít, record) and אור (or, light). Modern Hebrew is full of portmanteau blends, such as:
  • ערפיח (arpiakh, smog), from ערפל (arafel, fog) and פיח (piakh, soot)
  • מדרחוב (midrahov, (pedestrian) promenade), from מדרכה (midrakha, footpath) and רחוב (rehov, street)
  • מחזמר (makhazemer, musical), from מחזה (makhazeh, play [noun]) and זמר (zémer, song)
  • בוהוריים (bohorayim, brunch), from בוקר (boker, morning) (i.e., breakfast [cf. ארוחת בוקר, aruhat boker, breakfast]), and צהריים (tsohorayim, noon), (i.e., lunch [cf. ארוחת צהריים, aruhat tsohorayim, lunch]).
  • מגדלור (migdalor, lighthouse), from מגדל (migdal, tower) and אור (or, light)
  • קניון (kenyon, shopping mall), from קניות (keniyot, shopping) and חניון (cheniyon, parking)
  • רמזור (ramzor, traffic light), from רמז (remez, signal) and אור (or, light)

Hindi

Common name like 'Mahesh' meaning lord of the earth, is composed of two words Maha (Great) + Ish (God), combined by the rules of Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

 sandhi
Sandhi
Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries . Examples include the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words...

. However unlike other languages, sandhi
Sandhi
Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries . Examples include the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words...

 in Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

 follows strict grammar rules and is a well formed system from the very beginning of Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

. There are many examples of borrowed word blends in Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...

. Another word common in both Hindi and English is Hinglish
Hinglish
Hinglish, a blending of the words "Hindi" and "English", means to combine both languages in one sentence. This is more commonly seen in urban and semi-urban centers of the Hindi-speaking states of India, but is slowly spreading into rural and remote areas of these states via television, mobile...

, which refers to the vernacular
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...

 of the people in India, where they mix Hindi and English in the spoken language.

Icelandic

There is a tradition of linguistic purism in Icelandic
Linguistic purism in Icelandic
Linguistic purism in Icelandic is the sociolinguistic phenomenon of linguistic purism in the Icelandic language. Its aim is to substitute loanwords with the creation of new words from Old Icelandic and Old Norse roots and prevent new loanwords entering the language. In Iceland, linguistic purism is...

, and neologisms are frequently created from pre-existing words. Tölva ("computer") is a portmanteau of tala ("digit; number") and völva ("oracle or seeress").

Indonesian

Indonesian
Indonesian language
Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....

 has many portmanteau words:
  • Golput, voters who abstain from voting, from Golongan Putih, "blank party" or "white party".
  • Jagorawi
    Jagorawi Toll Road
    The Jagorawi Toll Road was the first toll road in Indonesia. Construction on the highway began in 1973 by some 200 workers at a cost of 350 million Indonesian rupiah per kilometer; it was officially opened by President of Indonesia Suharto on 9 March 1978....

    , a motorway linking the cities of Jakarta
    Jakarta
    Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...

    , Bogor
    Bogor
    Bogor is a city on the island of Java in the West Java province of Indonesia. The city is located in the center of the Bogor Regency , 60 kilometers south of the Indonesian capital Jakarta...

     and Ciawi.
  • Jabodetabek, the area of greater Jakarta, consisting of Jakarta, Bogor, Depok
    Depok
    Depok is a city in West Java province, Indonesia on the western border of DKI Jakarta in the Jabodetabek metropolitan region. The "de" in Jabodetabek refers to Depok, while the word "depok" itself comes from Sundanese language meaning hermitage or abode of one living in seclusion.It has an area of...

    , Tangerang
    Tangerang
    Tangerang is a city in the Province of Banten, Indonesia. It is located about 25 km west of Jakarta. It is the third largest urban center in the Jabotabek region after Jakarta and Bekasi. It has an area of 164.54 km² and an official intercensal estimated population of 1,537,244 for 2005...

    , Bekasi
    Bekasi
    Bekasi is a city in West Java, Indonesia, located on the eastern border of Jakarta in the Jabodetabek metropolitan region. To the south is Bogor Regency, east is Bekasi Regency....

    .
  • The Suramadu National Bridge connects the cities of Surabaya
    Surabaya
    Surabaya is Indonesia's second-largest city with a population of over 2.7 million , and the capital of the province of East Java...

     and Madura
    Madura
    Madura is an Indonesian island off the northeastern coast of Java. The island comprises an area of approximately 4,250 km². Madura is administered as part of the East Java province. It is separated from Java by the narrow Strait of Madura.-History:...

    .


In slang:
  • Mafia = matematika + fisika + kimia (mathematics, physics and chemistry)
  • Saltum = salah kostum ('wrong costume'), i.e. inappropriate dress
  • Caper = cari perhatian ('searching for attention')
  • Maho = manusia ('human') + homosexual; this term is commonly used as a joke as LGBT in Indonesia is a very problematic thing, and many still regard it as a mental illness.
  • Warteg = Warung
    Warung
    A warung is a type of small family-owned business — often a casual shop, usually café — in Indonesia and Malaysia...

     + Tegal
    Tegal
    Tegal is the largest city in the Tegal Regency, Indonesia. It is situated on the north coast of Central Java, about from Semarang, capital of Central Java....

    , an area in Indonesia
  • Alay
    Alay
    ' is a pop culture phenomenon in Indonesia. It is a stereotype describing something “tacky” and “cheesy” . The Alay culture phenomena spans over a wide array of styles in music, dress, and messaging. It has often been compared to that of the Jejemon phenomenon originating from the Philippines and...

     = anak ('kid') + either lebay (excessive, cheesy) or layangan ('kite')
  • Ropang ('toast
    Toast
    Toast is bread that has been browned by exposure to radiant heat. This browning reaction is known as the Maillard reaction. Toasting warms the bread and makes it firmer, so it holds toppings more securely...

    ') = roti ('bread') + panggang ('roasted' or 'toasted')
  • Kanker (literally 'cancer') is also slang for 'out of money', from kantong ('pocket') + kering ('dry')
  • Nasgor ('fried rice') = nasi ('rice') + goreng ('fried')

Japanese

There are many examples of borrowed word blends in Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

. The word , meaning PC, as in personal computer, is not officially an English loan word. The word does not exist in English; it is a uniquely Japanese
Wasei-eigo
are Japanese pseudo-Anglicisms: English constructions not used in the English-speaking world or by native English speakers, but that appear in Japanese. This should not be confused for foreign words gairaigo, which generally refer to words from European languages, especially American English...

 contraction of the English . Another example, , is a contracted form of the English words and .

Sometimes Japanese and English words are blended together. One very famous example, , is the blend of the Japanese word for and the English word .

Portmanteau word/morph (linguistics)

In linguistics the term blend
Blend
In linguistics, a blend is a word formed from parts of two or more other words. These parts are sometimes, but not always, morphemes.-Linguistics:...

 is used to refer to general combination of words, and the term portmanteau is reserved for the narrow sense of combining two or more morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...

s in one morph. E.g. in the Latin word animalis the ending -is is a portmanteau morph because it is used for two morphemes: the singularity and the genitive case. In English two separate morphs are used (of an animal).

The term may also be extended to include contractions
Contraction (grammar)
A contraction is a shortened version of the written and spoken forms of a word, syllable, or word group, created by omission of internal letters....

. Examples of such combinations include:
Language Combination Portmanteau
Portuguese de o do
a aquele àquele
de ela dela
em um num
French à le au
à les aux
de le du
de les des
si il s'il
que + il/elle/on qu'il/elle/on
German in das ins
in dem im
zu dem zum
zu der zur
Irish de an den
do an don
Spanish a el al
de el del
con mi conmigo
con ti contigo
para agua paragua
Welsh i yn i'n
West Frisian bist do bisto
yn de yn 'e


This usage has been referred to as "portmanteau morph."

While in Portuguese, French and Spanish the use of the short forms is mandatory, German speakers may freely choose the form they use.

See also

  • Acronym
  • Blend
    Blend
    In linguistics, a blend is a word formed from parts of two or more other words. These parts are sometimes, but not always, morphemes.-Linguistics:...

  • Border towns in the United States with portmanteau names
    Border towns in the United States with portmanteau names
    A list of border towns in the United States with portmanteauitaric names to indicate the border they are near:-Border town portmanteaus:* Calexico, California ; see also Mexicali* Cal-Nev-Ari, Nevada...

  • Colloquialism
    Colloquialism
    A colloquialism is a word or phrase that is common in everyday, unconstrained conversation rather than in formal speech, academic writing, or paralinguistics. Dictionaries often display colloquial words and phrases with the abbreviation colloq. as an identifier...

  • Compound words
  • Double entendre
    Double entendre
    A double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic....

  • Finnegans Wake, James Joyce
    James Joyce
    James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...

    's novel with an unusually high proportion of portmanteau neologisms
  • List of portmanteaus
  • Neologism
  • Pseudo-anglicism
    Pseudo-Anglicism
    Pseudo-anglicisms are words in languages other than English which were borrowed from English but are used in a way native English speakers would not readily recognize or understand. Pseudo-anglicisms often take the form of portmanteau words, combining elements of multiple English words to create a...

  • Pun
    Pun
    The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...

  • Sniglet
    Sniglet
    Sniglet is a neologism, popularized by comedian/actor Rich Hall during his tenure on the 1980s HBO comedy series Not Necessarily the News. Each episode of the monthly series featured a regular segment on sniglets, which Hall described as "any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should"...

  • Syllabic abbreviation

External links

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