By the title, I expect that you may have concluded that I took a trip to a place called Port Manteau — a seemingly desirable warm beach location on a French Isle to obtain pleasant relief from the winter cold.  But no, portmanteau is not a place name; it is a dictionary word having two meanings with a long literary history.  

My first introduction to the word “portmanteau” came in the novels of Charles Dickens, as he described numerous traveler lifting and binding a portmanteau — a bag with two compartments packed with clothes, toiletries, and trip necessities — atop a horse drawn carriage traveling hither and non over muddy, rutty roads in the nineteenth century.   

My second revelation came from none other than that famous linguist, Humpty Dumpty, in “Through the Looking Glass” by C S Lewis (1832—1898).  Humpty Dumpty explains:

— “Well, ‘slithy means “lithe and slimy” and ‘Mimsy is “flimsy and miserable”. You see it’s like a portmanteau — there are two meanings packed up into one word.” 

By definition, portmanteau carries two meanings:

1. A large trunk or suitcase, typically made of leather and opening into two equal parts, derived from combining the french words porter (to carry) and manteau (cloak); and

2. A word blending the sounds and combining the meaning of two other words.

In modern times linguists would identify a portmanteau as a neologism:  a newly coined word or expression (dictionary.com)

For examples,  lets look at a few common portmanteau neologisms: 

Chortle = Chuckle and snort (Lewis Carrol in through the Looking Glass)

Brunch = Breakfast and lunch

Spork = Spoon and fork

Skort = Skirt and shorts

Informercial = Information and commercial

Smog = Smoke and fog

Fortnight = Fourteen and night

Motel = Motor and hotel

Frenemy = Friend and enemy

Carjack = Car and hijack

Crunk = Crazy and drunk

Ginormous = Giant and enormous

And more recently:

Smize = Smile and Gaze (popularized recently by mask wearing)

Webinar = web and seminar

Podcast = Ipod and broadcast 

Lewis used many portmanteau words in his writing and poems; Dickens often used portmanteau words as surnames for his interesting characters.  In modern times, Lewis’ famous nonsense poem, Jabberwocky, could be updated to “Jabberwalkee” or “talkeewalkee” to define people who walk and talk on their cell phone at the same time.