subs. phr. (common).—A made vocable packed with two or more meanings: e.g., slithy = lithe + slimy; torrible = torrid + horrible; SQUARSON = squire + parson; SQUIRSHOP = squire + bishop. [The name was Lewis Carroll’s, the method Bishop Sam. Wilberforce’s.]
1876. LEWIS CARROLL, The Hunting of the Snark, Preface. [Concerning PORTMANTEAU-WORDS.] For instance, take the two words ‘fuming’ and ‘furious.’ Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first…. If you have that rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say ‘frumious.’
1892. Globe, 12 Oct., 1. 4. In these circumstances it is really surprising that so few of these PORTMANTEAU WORDS, as Lewis Carroll called them, are perpetrated.
