portmanteau
Syllables: port·man·teauUK/pɔːtˈmæn.təʊ//pɔɹtˈmæn.toʊ/
portmanteau noun: a large travelling case usually made of leather, and opening into two equal sections.
Noun
portmanteau (plural portmanteaus or portmanteaux)
- A large travelling case usually made of leather, and opening into two equal sections.
- A Rover tooke him unprepared, / Search't his Port-mantua, bound him faſter, / And ſent him naked to his Maſter: […]1638, Corymbœus [pseudonym; Richard Brathwait], “His Northerne Journey: Third Part”, in Barnabees Journall; […], [London]: […] [John Haviland], →OCLC, signature P2, recto
- 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.1667, Charles Croke, Fortune's Uncertainty
- A word formed by putting two words together and thereby their meaning.
- 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.[1871 December 27 (indicated as 1872), Lewis Carroll [pseudonym; Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], “Humpty Dumpty”, in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, London: Macmillan and Co....
- Well then, ‘mimsy’ is ‘flimsy and miserable’ (there’s another portmanteau for you).1871 December 27 (indicated as 1872), Lewis Carroll [pseudonym; Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], “Humpty Dumpty”, in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC...
- Synonyms:
- portmanteau word, blend, blend word, lexical blend, amalgamation, brunch word, frankenword, portmantologism, telescope word
- A portmanteau film.
- We're so bombarded with images, it's a struggle to preserve our imaginations.' In response, he's turned to cinema, commissioning 11 film-makers to contribute to a portmanteau film, entitled '11'09"01' and composed of short films each running 11 minutes, nine seconds and one frame.2002 December 11, Nick Bradshaw, “One day in September”, in Time Out, page 71
- His long-awaited portmanteau, which premiered in Cannes on Monday, is the most Anderson of all Anderson films. It's Anderson distilled, Anderson squared, Anderson to the nth degree.2021 July 12, Nicholas Barber, “The French Dispatch: Four stars for Wes Anderson's latest”, in BBC
- A schoolbag.
- Synonyms:
- port, school port
- A hook on which to hang clothing.
- But before I started that long and rather far-fetched and not frightfully original digression, what I meant to say quite simply was that there are no portmanteaux to be examined here because the clientele of this café, ladies and gentlemen, does not sit down.1918 February (date written), Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “Je ne parle pas français”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC...
Adjective
portmanteau (not comparable)
- Made by combining two (or more) words, stories, etc., in the manner of a linguistic portmanteau.
- The overall narrator of this portmanteau story - for Dickens co-wrote it with five collaborators on his weekly periodical, All the Year Round - expresses deep, rational scepticism about the whole business of haunting.2002 December 14, Nicholas Lezard, “Spooky tales by the master and friends”, in The Guardian (London), page 30
- Synonyms:
- blend
Verb
portmanteau (third-person singular simple present portmanteaus, present participle portmanteauing, simple past and past participle portmanteaued or portmanteau'd)
- To create a portmanteau word.
- Synonyms:
- blend
portmanteau meaning in Kannada, Arabic, Persian and Vietnamese
portmanteau in Kannada
- ತೊಗಲ ಪೆಟ್ಟಿಗೆ, ಕೂಡುಹುರುಳೊರೆ, ಕೂಡೊರೆ
portmanteau in Arabic
- luggage case
- حَقِيبَة سَفَر ḥaqībat safar
portmanteau in Persian
- luggage case
- چمدان čamedân
portmanteau in Vietnamese
- luggage case
- va li
Examples of portmanteau in a sentence
- The term fraudience is a portmanteau derived from the terms fraud and audience.
- As the month came to an end, Striketober turned into Strikevember, Strikesgiving and other strike-themed portmanteaus.
- Blends, also known as portmanteau words, are not an original part of English.
Synonyms of portmanteau
- portmanteau word
- blend
- blend word
- lexical blend
- amalgamation
- brunch word
- frankenword
- portmantologism
- telescope word
- port
1 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of portmanteau
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | portmanteaus |
| plural | portmanteaux |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | portmanteaus |
| present participle | portmanteauing |
| past participle | portmanteaued |
| past | portmanteaued |
| past participle | portmanteau'd |
| past | portmanteau'd |
Origin of 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.
Words formed from portmanteau
Phrases with portmanteau
Words that rhyme with portmanteau
Questions about portmanteau
- What does portmanteau mean?
- Portmanteau means a large travelling case usually made of leather, and opening into two equal sections.
- What is portmanteau in Kannada?
- Portmanteau in Kannada is ತೊಗಲ ಪೆಟ್ಟಿಗೆ, ಕೂಡುಹುರುಳೊರೆ, ಕೂಡೊರೆ. See Portmanteau meaning in Kannada.
- What part of speech is portmanteau?
- Portmanteau can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
- How do you pronounce portmanteau?
- Portmanteau is pronounced /pɔːtˈmæn.təʊ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of portmanteau?
- The plural of portmanteau is portmanteaus.
Words near portmanteau in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: portmanteau (page history and authors); portmanteau (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-portmanteau-1.ogg, en-au-portmanteau.ogg.
Cite this entry: “portmanteau.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/portmanteau. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.