Portmanteau (luggage)
A portmanteau is a piece of luggage, usually made of leather and opening into two equal parts. Some are large, upright, and hinged at the back and enable hanging up clothes in one half,[1] while others are much smaller bags (such as Gladstone bags) with two equally sized compartments.[2]
The word derives from the French word portemanteau (from porter, "to carry", and manteau, "coat") which nowadays means a coat rack but was in the past also used to refer to a traveling case or bag for clothes.[3][4] By metaphorical extension, following Lewis Carroll's use of portmanteau in Through the Looking-Glass, the word now also names a type of word composed of two merged parts.[5][6]
Portmanteau mail bag
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In the 1700s, the term also described a mail bag.[7] This continued into the 1800s for bags used by the United States Postal Service.[8][9] An 1823 resolution in Congress further stated that "locks... will be placed on the portmanteaus containing the principal mails [which] can only be opened... at the distributing offices."[10]
References
[edit]- ↑ "Portmanteau definition and meaning - Collins English Dictionary". Collinsdictionary.com.
- ↑ "A History of Vintage Luggage". Achome.co.uk. Retrieved January 16, 2014.
- ↑ Petit Robert: portemanteau - "malle penderie" (suitcase in which clothes hang)
- ↑ "PORTEMANTEAU : Définition de PORTEMANTEAU". Cnrtl.fr.
- ↑ Carroll, Lewis (1871). "Humpty Dumpty". Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Macmillan – via Project Gutenberg.
You see it's like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.
- ↑ "Exploring Portmanteaus and Blends". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved June 27, 2026.
- ↑ Chmara, Agnieszka (March 26, 2018). "Portmanteau". Eighteenth Century Lit.pbworks.com. Retrieved September 2, 2023.
A 1726 dictionary defines a portmanteau as a Mail or a Cloak Bag...
- ↑ Marsh, Allison. "US Postal Bag Prototype". National Postal Museum. Retrieved September 2, 2023.
In the 19th century, both newspapers and letters were placed in a portmanteau, a round, side-opening, leather bag.
- ↑ "Mail bag". Shaker Museum and Library. October 19, 2016. Retrieved September 2, 2023.
This style of bag, sometimes called a portmanteau, was used by the Post Office Department in the mid-1800s to transport mail...
- ↑ "Bulloch History with Roger Allen: Nation, Georgia set up Rural Free Delivery mail routes". Statesboro Herald. May 27, 2017. Retrieved September 2, 2023.
It directed that here, All letters... are placed in a portmanteau [or] principal mail bag...
External links
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Media related to Portmanteau (luggage) at Wikimedia Commons
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