PORTMANTEAU WORDS

PORTMANTEAU WORD: "a blended word formed by merging two sounds or meanings to create another separate word".

I have known about portmanteau words since reading Lewis Carroll's Through The Looking Glass. In fact, Carroll originated the term "portmanteau words" to describe several of his creations; e.g.: chortle (a blend of chuckle and snort); slithy, (a combination from slimy and lithe); and galumph, (a blend of gallop and triumph).

Portmanteau words--a perfect phrase--because the word portmanteau is, in reality, a portmanteau word! The French word "portmanteau" is luggage with TWO compartments! Portmanteau is derived from the French porter (to carry) and manteau (a cloak).

I had never heard the word "chifforobe" before reading To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, then I read "chiffen robe" from The Ballad Of The Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers, and then "chifferobe" from Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor. Perhaps it's a coincidence that all of those writers are Southerners and I have only heard people from the South use those words. I learned that "chiffing robe", "chifen robe", "chifferobe", "chiffrobe" and "shifferobe" are other versions of the word and all are portmanteau words! (See the article from Grammarphobia below):

Some of my favorite portmanteau words are:

turducken
avionics
brunch
smog
motel
bodacious
humongous
ginormous
frenemy
gaydar
fantabulous
Beatles

and of course, this would not be complete without another portmanteau word:

BLOG (blend of web and log).

However, there are two portmanteau words I detest:

cremains and irregardless!

GRAMMARPHOBIA
Closeted Lsnguage
Q: I was speaking to my grandmother about getting less-than-desirable presents for Christmas and she said, “We used to put them in the chifen robe.” When I asked about the term, she said it referred to a closet where her mother stored unwanted gifts to be regifted. I’m not sure of the spelling, but I’d appreciate any information you can provide.
A: The term your grandmother used is usually spelled “chifforobe.” It combines two different terms—“chiffonier” and “wardrobe.”

Words like this are called portmanteau words, which we’ve written about before on our blog. They get their name from their resemblance to a portmanteau, a case that has two hinged compartments. The Oxford English Dictionary says “chifforobe” originated in the US and means “a piece of furniture incorporating a wardrobe and a chest of drawers.”

It was first recorded, according to OED citations, in a 1908 Sears, Roebuck & Company catalog that carried this entry: “The chifforobes as illustrated on this page are a modern invention, having been in use only a short time.” The word is sometimes rendered as “chiffing robe,” and your grandma’s version, “chifen robe,” isn’t unusual either.

The OED cites this example from Carson McCullers’s novella The Ballad of the Sad Café (1953): “The room was furnished with a large ‘chiffen robe.’” Like chifforobes, both chiffoniers and wardrobes are free-standings cupboards devoted to storage, much like large dressers but with extras. Now that homes have built-in closets, we see less of words like “chiffonier” and “wardrobe,” which were once common household terms.

The OED defines a “chiffonier” as “a piece of furniture, consisting of a small cupboard with the top made so as to form a sideboard.” The word comes from French, in which chiffonnier or chiffonnière originally meant a “rag-gatherer,” the OED says. (In French, chiffon means rag.) By transference, chiffonnier was later used in French to mean “a piece of furniture with drawers in which women put away their needlework, cuttings of cloth, etc.,” says the OED, quoting the French lexicographer Émile Littré.

The use of “chiffonier” in English, the OED says, was first recorded in 1806 in reference to the furniture. In the 1850s, in conscious imitation of the French, it was also used in English to mean a rag-picker. The word was sometimes spelled “sheffonier,” which the OED says “represents the common pronunciation.” The other half of your grandmother’s word—“wardrobe’’—is much older than “chiffonier” and may date from the 1300s. It comes from the Old French word warderobe, a variant of garderobe, a locked room for safeguarding clothing, armor, and other valuables. When “wardrobe” came into our language during the Middle English period, it originally meant a separate room for storing clothing and armor—similar to a dressing room.