## Etymology
From French portemanteau ('coat-carrier, cloak bag'), from porter ('to carry') + manteau ('cloak, mantle'). The 'blended word' sense was coined by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-Glass (1871).

## AI Etymology
Portmanteau is from French portemanteau ('coat-carrier, cloak bag'), from porter ('to carry') + manteau ('cloak, mantle'). The 'blended word' sense was coined by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-Glass (1871). Important recorded forms include portemanteau (Middle French), portare (Latin), and mantellum (Latin). Morphologically, the word preserves a built structure whose named elements carry the historical sense into English. The modern sense remains close to that composition, with the parts narrowing into a single lexical item. In current use it covers a large traveling bag; a word blending two others (e.g. smog). The wider family includes related words such as port and mantle.

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