portmanteau

noun

1. 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: […]”

   “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. . . .”

2. (Australia, dated)A schoolbag.
3. (archaic)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.”

4. A word formed by putting two words together and thereby their meaning e.g. shrinkflation.

   “Well then, ‘mimsy’ is ‘flimsy and miserable’ (there’s another portmanteau for you).”

5. 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.”

   “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.”

adj

1. (attributive, 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.”

verb

1. (transitive)To create a portmanteau word.