portmanteau
noun and adjective

- consisting of a wide range of things that are considered as a single thing

- a word blending the sounds and combining the meanings of two others

- a large leather suitcase that opens into two hinged compartments

The Cambridge Dictionary / Dictionary dot com / The American Heritage Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN

"Portmanteau" from Middle French portemanteau "a travelling bag" is from the 1580s. The word originally referred to a court official who carried porte a prince's mantel manteau or "cloak".

The first appearances of the following common portmanteaus were: brunch (breakfast + lunch) in 1896, smog (smoke + fog) in 1905, and motel (motor + hotel) in 1925.

In 1964, the newly independent African republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar chose the portmanteau word Tanzania as its name. Similarly Eurasia is a portmanteau of Europe and Asia.

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PORTMANTEAU QUIZ

Can you guess the elements from which the following seven portemanteaus are formed? (answers below)

- pixel
- Amtrak
- Verizon
- Oxbridge
- Twingo
- Bollywood
- Billary

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SYNONYMS

- a combination word or a newly coined word:

amalgamation, blendword, coinage, compound, frankenword, invented word, made-up word, merged word, neologism, new expression, new term, new word, PORTMANTEAU, portmantologism, synthetic word, telescope word, vogue word

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QUIZ ANSWERS

- pixel = pics + element
- Amtrak = America + track
- Verizon = veritas + horizon
- Oxbridge = Oxford + Cambridge
- Twingo = twist + swing + tango
- Bollywood = Bombay + Hollywood
- Billary = Bill Clinton + Hillary Clinton

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SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation, share this fun fact:

On Wednesday, 28 June 2017, the New York Times crossword author included the remark: "How I wish Natalie Portman dated Jacques Cousteau, so I could call them 'PORTMANTEAU'."
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