The alt.usage.english FAQ   

• "portmanteau word"

  (Word Origins)
  
  This term for "blend word" comes from "portmanteau", "a leather travelling case that opens into two hinged compartments" (from the French for "carry cloak"), by way of Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll's _Through the Looking-Glass_: "You see it's like a portmanteau -- there are two meanings packed up into one word." Although most modern blends are simply the first part of one word plus the last part of another (e.g., "brunch" = "breakfast" + "lunch"; "smog" = "smoke" + "fog"; "Chunnel" = "Channel" + "tunnel"), Carroll himself formed his portmanteau words in a more subtle manner: "slithy" = "lithe" + "slimy"; "mimsy" = "miserable" + "flimsy"; "frumious" = "fuming" + "furious". Carroll's coinages "chortle" (which is now in most dictionaries) and "galumph" (which is in the OED) are generally understood as "chuckle" + "snort" and "gallop" + "triumph" respectively, although Carroll himself never explained them.
  
  Blend words predate Carroll: MWCD10 derives "squiggle" from "squirm" + "wriggle", and dates it circa 1816.
  
  There is a dictionary of them: _Portmanteau Dictionary: Blend Words in the English Language Including Trademarks and Brand Names_ by Dick Thurner (McFarland, 1993, ISBN 0-89950-687-9).
  
  There is a Lewis Carroll WWW page at: http://www.LewisCarroll.org/carroll.html, and a message board at: Yahoo Groups.
  
  Source: [Mark Israel, 'Word Origins: "portmanteau word"', The alt.usage.english FAQ file,(line 3994), (29 Sept 1997)]
  
  
  
  

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