From Fantabulous to Frenemy to Frappuccino: Fifty Portmanteau Words

What is a portmanteau word?

A portmanteau word is made up of two or more existing words that have been blended together.

Often portmanteau words start off as slang or nonsense words but later become part of Standard English due to being widely used. The rise of technology and the internet, in particular, has led to many portmanteau words being created, e.g. pixel, emoticon, and vlog.

Why ‘portmanteau’?

It was the famous British children’s writer, Lewis Carroll, who first used ‘portmanteau’ to describe these word blends in his 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.

A portmanteau was a type of suitcase which had two compartments, and so Carroll used it as a metaphor for a term that had two separate words packed into it. In the novel, the character Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice: “You see it’s like a portmanteau – there are two meanings packed up into one word.”

We’ve written about Lewis Carroll’s use of nonsense words previously – you can read more about them here.

Fifty examples of portmanteau words:

Portmanteau Word	What is it made up from?
Biopic	Biographical and (Motion) Picture
Blog	Web and Log
Bromance	Brother and Romance
Brunch	Breakfast and Lunch
Camcorder	Camera and Recorder
Carjack	Car and Hijack
Cheeseburger	Cheese and Hamburger
Chillax	Chill and Relax
Chinglish/ Franglais/ Hinglish/ Spanglish	Chinese and English / Français and Anglais / Hindi and English / Spanish and English
Chortle	Chuckle and Snort
Cyborg	Cybernetic and Organism
Dramedy	Drama and Comedy
Emoticon	Emotion and Icon
Endorphin	Endogenous and Morphine
Escalator	Escalate and Elevator
Fandom	Fan and Kingdom
Fantabulous	Fantastic and Fabulous
Fanzine	Fan and Magazine
Frappuccino	Frappé and Cappuccino
Frenemy	Friend and Enemy
Ginormous	Gigantic and Enormous
Guesstimate	Guess and Estimate
Hangry	Hungry and Angry
Infomercial	Information and Commercial
Jeggings	Jeans and Leggings
Keytar	Keyboard and Guitar
Labradoodle	Labrador Retriever and Poodle
Malware	Malicious and Software
Mathlete	Mathematics and Athlete
Mocktail	Mock and Cocktail
Mockumentary	Mock and Documentary
Moped	Motor and Pedal
Motel	Motor and Hotel
Napalm	Naphthene and Palmitate
Netiquette	Internet and Etiquette
Newscast	News and Broadcast
Oxbridge	Oxford and Cambridge
Pixel	Picture and Element
Pleather	Plastic and Leather
Rom Com	Romantic and Comedy
Sitcom	Situational and Comedy
Skort	Skirt and Shorts
Smog	Smoke and Fog
Snark	Snide and Remark
Spork	Spoon and Fork
Taxicab	Taximeter and Cabriolet
Vitamin	Vital and Amine
Vlog	Video and Blog
Webcast	World Wide Web and Broadcast
Workaholic	Work and Alcoholic

You will have noticed that some of these examples are slang words while others are widely used in professional writing – if you are planning on using any of these words in your own writing, make sure that they are appropriate to the style you are aiming for! Have a good week!

Avani Shah

15 Sep 2014
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From Fantabulous to Frenemy to Frappuccino: Fifty Portmanteau Words

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