I recently read an article in which the word satisfying it was used. The word intrigued me. According to the author, satisfy is a combination of suffice and satisfy.
This led me to investigate if there were other words that were formed by combining the sounds and meanings of two existing words. I learned that this compound word is called a portmanteau. I also discovered that there are many trunks that we use on a daily basis, many times without realizing what they are.
A trunk is typically defined as a large trunk or suitcase that opens in two equal parts. However, Lewis Carroll gave it new meaning in his book Through the Looking-Glass, when he had Humpty Dumpty say, “Well, ‘slithy’ means ‘slim and slimy’ and ‘mimsy’ is ‘weak and wretched.’ It’s like an acronym: there are two meanings gathered in a single word”.
Some acronym words are very familiar and easy to deconstruct:
Backronym: back + acronym
Breathalyzer: breath + analyzer
Brexit: Great Britain + exit
Camcorder: camera + recorder
Caplet: capsule + tablet
Glamping: glamor + camping
Infomercial: information + commercial
Infotainment: information + entertainment
Inscape: interior + landscape
Internet: international + network
Malware: malicious + software
Manscaping: man + landscaping
Fusion: Fusion + Welding
Motel: motor + hotel
Motorcycle: motorized + bicycle
Netflix: internet + movies
Pension: couple + alimony
Pluot: plum + apricot
Simultaneous: simultaneous + emission
Sitcom: situational + comedy
tween: adolescent + between
Wikipedia: wiki + encyclopedia
Some abbreviated words are unfamiliar, but still relatively easy to deconstruct:
Affluenza: rich + influenza
Anticipation: anticipation + disappointment
Prequiem: preventive + requiem
Screenager: screen + teenager
Some words are very familiar, but the terms that contribute them can be surprising, at least they surprised me. For example, I never knew that the word blog is composed of web and log.
Bit: binary + digit
Chortle: laugh + snort
Cyborg: cybernetics + organism
Endorphin: endogenous + morphine
Fortnight: fourteen + nights
Gainsay: against + say
Garmin: Garry Burrell + Min Kao
Gerrymander: Gerry + Salamander
Goodbye: God + be (with) + you
Groupon: group + coupon
Annoyance: haggling + fighting
Humongous: huge + monstrous
Ineptitude: inept + attitude
Microsoft: microcomputer + software
Modem: modulation + demodulation
Muppet: puppet + puppet
pixel: image + element
Prissy: prim + ladybug
Skype: sky + point to point
Smog: smoke + fog
Taxi: meter + convertible
Travel notebook: trip + monologue
Vitamin: vita + amine
WiFi: wireless + fidelity
There were some words that I had never seen before. For example, I live in Wisconsin, where a lot of snow and ice falls, and I’ve never heard this word in any weather forecast, snice: snow and ice.
Ambigram: ambiguous + gram
Automatically: automatically + magically
Flexitarian: vegetarian + flexible
Mizzle: mist + drizzle
Sporgeria: spam + forgery
Stagflation: stagnation + inflation
And some words seem like malapropisms when we first hear them, but they are actually real words; for example, refute: repudiate + refute.
It really makes me wonder who originally coined these words, why they felt the need to create them, and how they were so clever.