The English language constantly evolves. As new technologies arise, we develop new words to describe them, as each generation creates new slang terms from old classics.
Portmanteau is one of the many fun ways English adapts.
Discover how portmanteaus work and enjoy our epic list of word mashups we use every day.
What’s a Portmanteau?
A portmanteau is a mash-up of two words to create a new word. One of the earliest examples in modern English is “suitcase,” a combination of the words “suit” and “case” that describes a case explicitly used to carry suits.
We’ve used portmanteau for centuries as an easy way to describe things.
Origin & Pronunciation
The word portmanteau originated as a French portmanteau, which combined the words “porte” (to carry) and manteau (cloak) to describe a traveling bag that carried clothes.
Though it looks intimidating, it’s easy to pronounce. If you say “Port man toe,” you’ll get close enough. Here’s the dictionary pronunciation: [pôrtˈmantō]
Did You Know It’s Portmanteau?
These portmanteau are such fundamental parts of language that we may not even remember they’re mashups!
How many of these words do you use?
Brunch
The combination of “breakfast” and “lunch” now usually describes a casual Sunday morning feast with mimosas!
Brainiac
We combine the words “brain” and “maniac” to describe someone who’s seriously smart. They’re a maniac about being smart, if you will. Hence, Brainiac.
Smog
Smoke and fog combine to illustrate the horrific way pollution lingers in the air.
Pluot
When we combine two beloved fruits into a new hybrid, we get a portmanteau in both word and product. Pluots are hybrids between plums and apricots.
Motel
Motels popped up with car culture, giving motorists a quick and easy reprieve from the road. It’s a combination of “motor” and “hotel”.
Sitcom
Our favorite shows make us laugh by putting characters in humorous situations. They’re situational comedies.
Dumbfound
When something is so stupid, it leaves you confused; you’re dumbfounded, a combination of dumb and confound.
Medevac
In emergencies, time is of the evidence. It’s far easier to call for a medevac than a medical evacuation.
Snark
Why use a snide remark when you can bite back with snark?
Spam
Hawaii’s favorite food is a portmanteau of spicy and ham. I always thought it was fake ham, but you learn something new every day.
Hazmat
Society makes so many hazardous materials, we need an easier way to describe them. Jamming the words together works perfectly.
Splatter
When something splashes and spatters, we say it splatters. I love this portmanteau, because I never hear people use the word “spatter.” Its portmanteau has almost replaced it entirely.
Clasp
You may think “clutch”, “grasp”, and “clasp” all mean the same thing, but “clasp” is actually a portmanteau of the other two! “Grasp” is the act of grabbing onto something, while “clutch” means holding on tight. When you combine them, you get a word that means grabbing and holding tightly.
Telethon
A television marathon becomes a telethon. Did people ever use the word telethon, or was that just for networks hosting a special event?
Stash
When you store a bunch of items in a cache, you have a stash.
Blog
Did you know the word “blog” originated as a portmanteau? In the early days of the internet, we called them web logs, which were shortened to blogs so quickly that many of us forgot the origins.
Vlog
Video bloggers matched bloggers’ energy. The word vlog is a portmanteau of a portmanteau – it’s like portmanteau inception! It combines “video” with “blog”.
Biopic
We love watching movies about historical figures. The biography turned picture movie helps us visualize the life and times of famous people.
Infomercial
Some commercials scream buy, buy, buy while others try to tell us exactly why we need a certain product and how it can improve our lives. These informational commercials are longer than traditional marketing spots, but most of us don’t fall for the hype.
Newscast
You can broadcast anything from live events to pre-filmed television shows. News broadcasts share live news over the airways.
Prequel
Sequels happen after the movie, but what happens before? We couldn’t think of a new word, so we combined a suffix that means “before” (pre) with “sequel” to describe them.
Pixel
A picture element describes the smallest unit of an image that a site or printer makes. The more pixels, the clearer the image.
Romcom
Romantic comedies offer something for everyone. The light-hearted films provide laughs and love, making them ideal compromises for date night.
Spork
Why use two utensils when you can reduce costs with one? A spork combines the bowl of a spoon with the prongs of a fork.
Cyborg
Our favorite sci-fi creatures, the cybernetic organisms, combine the best parts of synthetic and organic materials to create an unstoppable force.
Sci-fi
Sci-fi itself is becoming a portmanteau of science fiction. The term is hyphenated, so it’s not a full portmanteau yet, but the transition phase shows how language evolves. How soon before we drop the hyphen?
Guesstimate
A guess is a wild shot in the dark, while an estimate is a calculated approximation. But if you combine them, you get something that’s close enough to reality.
Modem
We shortened the modulator-demodulator into a portmanteau because nobody wants to say the original term. It converts signals from analog to digital and then back again.
Electrocute
Electrocute is a morbid portmanteau describing execution by electricity.
Moped
First, we created bicycles, then we added a motor to the pedaling machine to create a moped – a motorized pedaler.
Fun fact: bicycle is not a portmanteau because the prefix “bi” isn’t used by itself to mean “two,” only as a prefix.
Muppet
Famed puppet master Jim Henson coined the portmanteau Muppet to describe his famous marionette puppets.
Lunchbox
When you store your lunch in a box, you get a lunchbox.
Skort
Skirts look great, but if the wind blows the wrong way, you’re showing off way more than intended. When you combine the look of a skirt with the practicality of shorts, you get a skort.
Email is so ubiquitous that we might forget it originated as a word mashup of “electronic” and “mail”.
Alphanumeric
When you combine the alphabet with numbers, you get an easy way to say them all in one word. Technically, it’s a portmanteau of “alphabetic” and “numeric”. We could just say characters.
Parasail
Say you want to go parachuting and sailing all in one go. Strap on your parachute, set out to sail, and let the wind lift you in the air!
Animatronic
The creepy shows popular in kids’ venues across the country in the 80s and 90s were made with animated electronics. Modern animatronics are way better.
Breathalyzer
The breath analyzer became popular because people refused to stop driving under the influence.
Malware
Malicious software seeks to infect your computer with trojan horses and viruses.
Freeware
Free software is much better than malware, and the fact that there’s so much freeware we need a portmanteau to describe it shows that there’s still good in the world.
Chortle
When you chuckle so hard you snort.
Velcro
Did you know that the word velcro is a portmanteau? It combines “velvet” with the French word “crochet”, which means to hook.
Metrosexual
Popularized in the 90s, metrosexual describes metropolitan city men who take pride in their looks. The term seeps with homophobia and toxic masculinity, as the implication is only homosexual men care about their appearance. It’s not used much anymore.
Ginormous
Did we need a word for something bigger than gigantic and enormous? The mash-up between the two humungous words describes something so big you can’t even imagine it.
Modern Portmanteau
We never stop coming up with fresh, new portmanteau.
Here are my favorite word mashups that have become popular in the 21st century!
Cosplay
When you wear a costume to play a character, you’re doing cosplay! Cosplay reigns supreme at conventions around the world.
Glamping
There’s nothing better than getting out in nature. But nature sucks sometimes, and it’s uncomfortable. Can’t we make it more glamorous? Why not camp in comfort?
Labradoodle
We’ve combined dog breeds to make new hybrids, then mashed up the names to describe the new mix. My favorite is when a Labrador meets a Poodle.
Mockumentary
Why spend time creating a documentary when you can mock the film style with a fake one?
Shrinkflation
Rising costs eat away at our budgets, but companies have found a new way to deal with it, especially for cost-sensitive consumers. They simply shrink the size of packages, making us pay the same price for less. It’s hidden inflation.
Staycation
antoniodiaz via Shutterstock.com.
Our lives are so busy that we’d rather stay home during our time off than take a traditional vacation.
Jeggings
Do you want the look of jeans with the comfort of leggings? You’re in luck!
Sexting
Engaging in sex talk while texting became so popular with the advent of smartphones we needed a new word to describe it.
Paywall
When journalism moved online, news companies needed new ways to make money. To get users to pay for their content, they set up a giant virtual wall, forcing people to log in with credit cards to read the news.
Mocktail
Fruity cocktails are delicious, but why do they always have to include alcohol? People are drinking less and less, but they still want to enjoy delicious drinks! Mock cocktails were born, but I hate that they’re almost as expensive as alcoholic beverages.
Autotune
Computer programs can automatically tune anyone’s voice to make them sound good.
Fanfic
Fans love their favorite movies, shows, and books so much that they create their own stories inside the universe. These fictions expand the worlds far beyond the original creators’ wildest imagination.
Photobomb
Jump into someone else’s photo for laughs. We use the word “bomb” metaphorically to describe something disruptive because photobombs mess up the intent of the original picture.
Affluenza
When you’re so affluent it’s a sickness on par with influenza. The term describes spoiled rich people who are so out of touch with reality it’s considered an illness.
Shopaholic
If you shop so much that it negatively impacts your life, you might be an alcoholic – I mean a shopaholic. We love using the word alcoholic as a base for portmanteaus describing an addiction to something, like chocoholic and workaholic.
Edutainment
Educational programming doesn’t have to be boring! We can educate with entertainment, via games and television.
Wikipedia
One of the world’s most popular websites created its name via portmanteau. Combine “wiki”, quickly digestible bites of information, with an “encyclopedia”, and you’ll find a treasure trove of knowledge.
Webinar
When you host a seminar on the web, you get a webinar.
Frankenfood
Frankenstein is a horrific monster created from spare parts. What happens when you use a similar process to make food?
Manscape
Society makes grooming manly by likening it to lawn care. When a man trims and manages his body hair, he’s landscaping himself like he would a garden.
Frenemy
A frenemy describes a rocky relationship where two people claim to be friends while constantly trying to sabotage each other. That’s not a friend, it’s an enemy.
Askhole
Someone who constantly asks annoying and obvious questions just to get on your nerves. We know they’re doing it on purpose. We all know where the “hole” part comes from 😉.
Listicle
The bane of every journalist’s existence turns lists into articles. It’s an easy, user-friendly format for reporting that works well for online content.
Mansplain
A mash-up of “man” and “explain” describes instances where men attempt to overexplain things to women. It often refers to novice men who try to explain an expert woman’s field to her or when men try to explain simple concepts everyone knows to a woman.
Adorkable
She’s a dork, but it’s so darn adorable. This fun portmanteau describes someone who’s delightfully dorky.
Bromance
A bromance celebrates platonic love in male friendships. It combines the word “brother” with “romance” to signify the deep bond between friends.
Hangry
Hangry is the perfect portmanteau we never knew we needed. Most of us get cranky when hungry, and someone finally dared to describe the feeling by combining “hungry” with “angry”.
Hobosexual
Hobosexual is a portmanteau that plays off the words we use to describe sexuality. A hobosexual is a hobo who uses romantic relationships to secure living arrangements. Their sexual orientation is all about whoever gives them a free place to stay.
Emoticon
Mehaniq via Shutterstock.com.
New technology forces us to use new lexicons to describe them. What do you call an icon that’s used to convey emotion? Emoticon seems like the perfect solution.
Chillax
If you just want to relax and chill out, you’re probably looking to chillax. The slang portmanteau can also be used as a verb, like telling someone to calm down.
Mantrum
Women’s communities created a new portmanteau to describe the emotional meltdowns many men exhibit when things don’t go their way. Combining “man” with “tantrum,” the word expresses the unique anger men display, which may include shouting, screaming, or even punching walls.
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