Today’s word: portmanteau.

From Wikipedia: A portmanteau (IPA: /pɔrtˈmæntoʊ/), plural portmanteaux, is a word or morpheme that fuses two or more words or word parts to give a combined or loaded meaning. A folk usage of portmanteau refers to a word formed by combining both sounds and meanings from two or more words (e.g., spork from spoon and fork, animatronics from animated and electronics, guesstimate from guess and estimate, or ginormous from gigantic and enormous). Typically, portmanteaux are nonce words or neologisms - in recent years, the practice of creating them has become known as “smushing” or “smooshing”, and can often be seen playing an active minor role in some online media discussion. Portmanteaux are commonly used in science fiction for a wide variety of technical words, such as cyborg from cybernetic and organism.

Why this word? I love the elegant sound of it: “portmanteau“. I also have a soft spot for words that pluralize with a final “x”. Today, I’m fascinated by this definition altogether. I only knew portmanteau to be a gentrified suitcase.

Is the word portmanteau used for fused words because of its meaning as a suitcase or hold-all (holding all the stuff together), or because it is an example of a fused word (port = carry, manteau = cloak)?
Oldies but goodies, truly now words in their own right:

smog = smoke + fog

motel = motor + hotel

brunch = breakfast + lunch