Portmanteaux

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A portmanteau is a word or morpheme that fuses two or more words or word parts to give a combined or loaded meaning. A folk usage of portmanteau refers to a word formed by combining both sounds and meanings from two or more words (e.g., spork from spoon and fork, animatronics from animation and electronics, ginormous from gigantic and enormous, or blaxploitation from black and exploitation). Typically, portmanteaux are nonce words or neologisms. Portmanteaux are commonly used in scientific literature for a wide variety of technical words, such as cyborg from cybernetic and organism.

Examples

  • Triumelephantly - adj. In a celebratory and pachydermic manner. Triumphant and elephant. - Ch. 11, "Loopin held up the camera triumelephantly."
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