portmanteau
Part of speech: noun
adj
verb
Morphological type: compound
Topics: human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
Etymology: Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *per-der.
Proto-Indo-European *pr̥téh₂
Proto-Italic *portā
Proto-Indo-European *-h₂
Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂
Proto-Indo-European *-yéti
Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti
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 (sense 1). Sense 3 (“portmanteau film”) is derived from this.
Compound parts: porter
manteau
Inflected forms:
form: portmanteaus
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: portmanteaux
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: portmanteaus
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: portmanteauing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: portmanteaued
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: portmanteaued
pos: verb
tags: past
form: portmanteau'd
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: portmanteau'd
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A large travelling case usually made of leather, and opening into two equal sections.
pos: noun
examples: 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. . . .
gloss: A word formed by putting two words together and thereby their meaning.
pos: noun
examples: 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).
gloss: A portmanteau film.
pos: noun
examples: 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.
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.
gloss: A schoolbag.
pos: noun
tags: Australia
dated
gloss: A hook on which to hang clothing.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
examples: 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.
gloss: Made by combining two (or more) words, stories, etc., in the manner of a linguistic portmanteau.
pos: adj
tags: attributive
not-comparable
examples: 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.
gloss: To create a portmanteau word.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
Derived words: portmanbro
portmanteau agreement
portmanteau film
portmanteau word
Translations: