portmanteau
/pɔɹtˈmæn.toʊ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.56 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
3
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Example Sentences
- "A Rover tooke him unprepared, / Search't his Port-mantua, bound him faſter, / And ſent him naked to his Maſter: […]"
- "Rodolphus therefore finding such an earnest Invitation, embrac'd it with thanks, and with his Servant and Portmanteau, went to Don Juan's; where they first found good Stabling for their Horses, and afterwards as good Provision for themselves."
- "He brought down with him to our haunted house a little cask of salt beef; for, he is always convinced that all salt beef not of his own pickling, is mere carrion, and invariably, when he goes to London, packs a piece in his portmanteau."
- "I believe that people are like portmanteaux—packed with certain things, started going, thrown about, tossed away, dumped down, lost and found, half emptied suddenly, or squeezed fatter than ever, until finally the Ultimate Porter swings them on to the Ultimate Train and away they rattle. . . ."
- "Well, ‘slithy’ means ‘lithe and slimy.’ ‘Lithe’ is the same as ‘active.’ You see it’s like a portmanteau⸺there are two meanings packed up into one word."
- "Well then, ‘mimsy’ is ‘flimsy and miserable’ (there’s another portmanteau for you)."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *per- Proto-Indo-European *-téh₂ Proto-Indo-European *pr̥téh₂ Proto-Italic *portā Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Indo-European *-h₂tiinflu. Proto-Italic *-ājō Proto-Italic *-āō Proto-Italic *portāō Latin portāre Old French porter Middle French porte Latin mantellum Middle French manteau Middle French portemanteaubor. English portmanteau From Middle French portemanteau (“coat stand”), from porte (“he carries”, third-person singular present indicative of porter (“to carry”)) + manteau (“coat”), literally “[that which] carries coat”. The lexical sense (sense 2) was first used figuratively by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-Glass (1871) to describe the words he coined in the poem “Jabberwocky”, based on the concept of two words packed together, similar to a portmanteau (etymology). Sense 3 (“portmanteau film”) is derived from this.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /pɔɹtˈmæn.toʊ/
- British English: /pɔːtˈmæn.təʊ/
Usage
Inflected Forms
portmanteaus (plural)
portmanteaux (plural)
portmanteaus (present, singular)
portmanteauing (participle, present)
portmanteaued (participle, past)
portmanteaued (past)
portmanteau'd (participle, past)
portmanteau'd (past)