| portmanteau word n. A word formed by merging the sounds and meanings of two different words, as chortle, from chuckle and snort. |
portmanteau word
a word composed of parts of two or more words, such as chortle from chuckle and snort and motel from motor and hotel. The term was first used by Lewis Carroll to describe many of the unusual words in his Through the Looking-Glass (1871), particularly in the poem "Jabberwocky." Other authors who have experimented with such words are James Joyce and Gerard Manley Hopkins.
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