Definition:
A word formed by merging the sounds and meanings of two or more other words or word parts.
The most common type of blend is a full word followed by a word part (called a splinter), as in motorcade (motor + cavalcade).
See also:
- Portmanteau Word
- Compound Adjective, Compound Noun, and Compound Verb
- Etymology
- Listicle
- Malaphor
- Sniglet
- Where Do New Words Come From?
- Word Formation
Examples and Observations:
- agitprop (agitation + propaganda)
- alcopop (alcohol + pop)
- bash (bat + mash)
- biopic (biography + picture)
- Breathalyzer (breath + analyzer)
- camcorder (camera + recorder)
- chexting (cheating + texting)
- clash (clap + crash)
- cosmeceutical (cosmetic + pharmaceutical)
- docudrama (documentary + drama)
- electrocute (electricity + execute)
- emoticon (emote + icon)
- faction (fact + fiction)
- fanzine (fan + magazine)
- flare (flame + glare)
- flirtationship (flirting + relationship)
- glimmer (gleam + shimmer)
- Globish (global + English)
- guitarthritis (guitar + arthritis)
- infotainment (information + entertainment)
- moped (motor + pedal)
- palimony (pal + alimony)
- pornacopia (pornography + cornucopia)
- pulsar (pulse + quasar)
- sexcapade (sex + escapade)
- sexploitation (sex + exploitation)
- sitcom (situation + comedy)
- slanguage (slang + language)
- smash (smack + mash)
- sportscast (sports + broadcast)
- stagflation (stagnation + inflation)
- staycation (stay home + vacation)
- telegenic (television + photogenic)
- textpectation (text message + expectation)
- workaholic (work + alcoholic)
- "When a man fell into his anecdotage it was a sign for him to retire from the world."
(Benjamin Disraeli, Lothair, 1870) - "His attention was directed to them by his host jocosely, and he accepted them seriously as they drank in jocoserious silence Epps's massproduct, the creature cocoa."
(James Joyce, Ulysses, 1922) - "[Barack Obama is] a hope-ronaut. He's in a rarefied level of hope where the rest of us have to take tanks up with us."
(Stephen Colbert, Entertainment Weekly, Oct. 3, 2008) - Hispandering: manipulating one's rhetoric or actions to court Hispanic voters.
- "Blending is an area of word formation where cleverness can be rewarded by instant popularity: sexploitation from the seventies, the Chunnel from the eighties are common words now. . . . [U]npleasant as the phenomena they describe, the words guesstimate, testilying, pagejacking, spamouflage, compfusion, and explornography will probably elicit a smile."
(R. P. Stockwell and D. Minkova, English Words. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001)
Also Known As: portmanteau word, telescoping, lexical interlocking, semantic conflation
