A blended word or portmanteau is a word composed of parts of two (or more) other words, the meaning of which combines the meanings of the two other words, for example:
Breakfast + Lunch Brunch Morning meal + Midday meal Midday meal
This combination has given rise to the term brunch as well as a new definition of a mid-morning meal. Blend words are typically composed of the first word’s beginning and the end of the second word (like brunch). We can also use the first letters of two words, such as email (from “electronic + mail”). Lewis Carroll coined the term portmanteau to describe a suitcase in which you stuff clothes into both sides and then close them together.
Brunch is a common blend in which the beginning of the word breakfast is joined with the end of the word lunch. Many blend constituents overlap at phonologically or graphically identical segments, as in motel (motor + hotel) or blizzaster (blizzard + disaster).
