Meaning
"Portmanteau word" is used to describe a linguistic blend, namely "a word formed by blending sounds from two or more distinct words and combining their meanings." This definition overlaps with the grammatical term contraction, but a distinction can be made between a portmanteau and a contraction by noting that contractions are formed from words that would otherwise appear together in sequence, such as do and not, whereas a portmanteau word is typically formed by combining two or more existing words that all relate to a singular concept which the portmanteau word is meant to describe, such as Spanish and English, into Spanglish.
Portmanteaux should also be distinguished from compounds, which do not involve the truncation of parts of the stems of the words making them up. For instance, starfish is a compound, not a portmanteau, of star and fish (a hypothetical portmanteau of these words might be stish).
Read more about this topic: Portmanteau Word (version 2)
Famous quotes containing the word meaning:
“I begin, then, with some remarks about ‘the meaning of a word.’ I think many persons now see all or part of what I shall say: but not all do, and there is a tendency to forget, or to get it slightly wrong. In so far as I am merely flogging the converted, I apologize to them.”
—J.L. (John Langshaw)
“A: What is the meaning of life? B: I know, but I won’t tell you.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the superman is to be the meaning of the earth! I beseech you, my brothers, be true to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! They are poisoners, whether they know it or not.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)