Blend word

In linguistics, a blend—sometimes known, perhaps more narrowly, as a blend word, lexical blend, portmanteau (/pɔːrtˈmæntoʊ/ ^ⓘ port-MAN-toh or /ˌpɔːr(t)mænˈtoʊ/ POR(T)-man-TOH; pl. portmanteaus or portmanteaux), or portmanteau word—is a word formed, usually intentionally, by combining the sounds and meanings of two or more words. English examples include smog, coined by blending smoke and fog, as well as motel, from motor (motorist) and hotel. The component word fragments within blends are called splinters.

A blend is similar to a contraction, but contractions are formed, usually non-intentionally, from words whose sounds gradually drift together over time due to them commonly appearing together in sequence, such as do not naturally becoming don't (phonologically, /duː nɒt/ becoming /doʊnt/). A blend also differs from a compound, which fully preserves the stems of the original words. The 1973 Introduction to Modern English Word-Formation explains that "In words such as motel, boatel and Lorry-Tel, hotel is represented by various shorter substitutes – ‑otel, ‑tel, or ‑el – which I shall call splinters. Words containing splinters I shall call blends". Thus, at least one of the parts of a blend, strictly speaking, is not a complete morpheme, but instead a mere splinter or leftover word fragment. For instance, starfish is a compound, not a blend, of star and fish, as it includes both words in full. However, if it were called a "stish" or a "starsh", it would be a blend. Furthermore, when blends are formed by shortening established compounds or phrases, they can be considered clipped compounds, such as romcom for romantic comedy.