Portmanteau Words

A portmanteau is a word created by combining two other words. They are sometimes officially recognized by dictionaries, but more often they are invented and popularized as slang. A common and relevant example is blog (web + log).

Lewis Caroll gets credit for the linguistic term portmanteau. In his Through the Looking Glass, Humpty Dumpty is explaining to Alice the nonsense poem "Jabberwocky":

Well, slithy means lithe and slimy ... You see it's like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.

"Jabberwocky" gave us the now common word chortle, which is the blending of chuckle and snort.

Other common portmanteaux include:

smog (smoke + fog)
motel (motor + hotel)
brunch (breakfast + lunch)
alphabet (alpha + beta)
bioterrorism (biological + terrorism)
camcorder (camera + recorder)
electrocution (electric + execution)
spork (spoon + fork)
sportscast (sport + broadcast)
televangelist (television + evangelist)

But the most fun portmanteaux are those that won't likely ever make the dictionary. Words that are invented to meet a particular need at a particular time:

edutainment (education + entertainment)
slanguage (slang + language)
ginormous (gigantic + enormous)
mathlete (math + athlete)
dramedy (drama + comedy)
Chinglish (Chinese & English)
affluenza (affluent + influenza)

Here are a few I found online, including their definitions:

apocalapse: gap between predictions of the end of the world and when it might actually happen
skop: a movement between hopping and skipping
jerd: someone who is both a jock and a nerd
arrognance: the quality of being simultaneously ignorant and arrogant
mediocracy: a democracy where mediocrity abounds
arachnaclaustrophobia: fear of being in close spaces with spiders
momentaneous: happening momentarily and instantaneously
framily: a friend who is part of your family

And here's my current favorite:

precipilude: When you're driving in the rain and you go under an overpass--the moment where the rain isn't beating down on your windsheild; a precipitation interlude.

Got any more? I'd love some originals.