Thursday, October 18, 2007

word of the day

portmanteau

a word that fuses two or more other words together to give a new meaning.

i.e.:
  • wiktionary, my new discovery today, along with this word
  • the loathable ginormous (which I would argue needs a hyphen)
  • SeaTac
  • Alsask (a city on the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan)
  • and spork

coined by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking Glass.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

perhaps it's Alberta, not Alaska?

Carol said...

very cool!

kate said...

oh, yes, anon. of course.