or portmantick, portmantua, subs. (once literary: now vulgar).—A corruption of ‘portmanteau.’

1

  [?]  Robin Hood and the Butcher [CHILD, Ballads, v. 38], l. 115.

        And out of the sheriffs PORTMANTLE
  He told three hundred pound.

2

  1617–30.  HOWELL, Familiar Letters, 127 [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, ii. 79. Buckingham, in his Spanish journey carries a PORTMANTLE under his arm; our form of the word was to come seven years later.]

3

  1623.  MABBE, The Spanish Rogue (1630) 158 [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, ii. 86. We see PORTMANTEAU in page 158, and the form PORTMANTUA in the Index; our mantua-maker is a relic of this confusion].

4

  1692.  J. HACKET, Life of Archbishop Williams, i. 160. He would linger no longer, and play at cards in King Philip’s palace till the messenger with the PORT-MANTICK came from Rome.

5

  1726.  VANBRUGH, The Provoked Husband, i. 1. My lady’s gear alone were as much as filled four PORTMANTEL trunks.

6

  1753.  CHARLOTTE LENNOX, Henrietta, v. x. He sent orders to a servant to bring his PORTMANTUA.

7