portemanteau

portemanteau (plural portemanteaux or portemanteaus)

1. Alternative form of portmanteau (“travelling case”).
   • 1856, “The Great Hotel Question”, in Charles Dickens, editor, Household Words. , volume XIII, number 6 (whole 309), New York, N.Y.: Dix, Edwards & Co., , page 141, column 2:

     Then there is such a getting up-stairs with portemanteaus and carpet-bags in the Gross-Herzog; […]

   • 1868, Jessie Glenn, Cousin Paul, New York, N.Y.: G. W. Carleton & Co., . London: S Low, Son & Co., page 55:

     Bending low, he caught the whisper, “Read,” and following his eyes to the small stand before mentioned, among some articles that had been taken from his portemanteau, to administer to his comfort, he noticed a small pocket Bible.

   • 1869 January 23, Katharine Russell, Viscountess Amberley, edited by Bertrand Russell and Patricia Russell, The Amberley Papers: The Letters and Diaries of Lord and Lady Amberley, volume II, London: Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, , published 1937, page 254:

     I started later & only got to Rodborough turnpike, we sent the donkey cart for his portemanteau; […]

   • 1873, Edgar Fawcett, Purple and Fine Linen. , New York, N.Y.: G. W. Carleton & Co., . London: S Low, Son & Co., page 76:

     Perhaps they are very intimate and he only came to Pineside for the purpose of being near her. If I thought this, I should go on my knees to mamma concerning the matter of making him pack his portemanteau instantly.

   • 1873 October 31, The Commissioners of Patents’ Journal, number 2069, page 2363, column 1:

     A. Lovrek, of Vienna, for “Improvements in the shape and arrangement of portemanteaus.”—2 years.—(Public.)—Dated 13th May, 1873.

   • 1875, , Loving and Loth. , volume III, London: Richard Bentley and Son, pages 85–86:

     They travelled on as proposed. From Boston (where Eugene found his portemanteau, which he had telegraphed to have sent there) to New York, from New York up the Hudson, between tree-clothed villa-dotted banks, or pale cliffs beetling and bare, at whose foot could be seen darting along, like brilliant snakes, long trains of cars painted brightest orange or vermilion.

   • , Bret Harte, The Story of a Mine, London: George Routledge and Sons, , page 108:

     “I shall place them in my portman-tell,” said Gashwiler, suiting the word to the action, “for safe keeping. I need not inform you, who are now, as it were, on the threshold of official life, that perfect and inviolable secrecy in all affairs of State”—Mr. G. here motioned toward his portemanteau as if it contained a treaty at least—“is most essential and necessary.”

   • 1878, P. D. Millie, “Mr. Skulk”, in “Thirty Years Ago:” or Reminiscences of the Early Days of Coffee Planting in Ceylon, Colombo: A. M. & J. Ferguson:

     What capital fun, quite a romance, so we will just arrange, that until further notice, I will call myself, and others will call me, Mr. Skulk, a new arrival, prospecting for land, in light marching order, like a regular greenhorn, as he is lost his portemanteaux, and all his clothes, and has to write to Madras for more, although when they will be here, if ever at all, over these wretched roads, it is impossible to say.

   • 1879, J R O’Flanagan, “The Bar Life of O’Connell”, in Donahoe’s Magazine. , volume I, Boston, Mass.: T. B. Noonan and Company, page 314, column 1:

     Coachman and guard assisted in securing the portemanteaus and carpet-bags of the counsellors.

   • 1879 August 2, William Harrison Bunsworth, “The Captive of the Commons”, in Punch, or The London Charivari, volume LXXVII, London: he Office, , pages 47–48:

     After a brief period of uneasy slumber he sprang to his feet, and busied himself in packing his portemanteau.

   • 1881, Stanley Lane-Poole, Egypt, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, , page 12:

     Its hot parching breath, laden with minute sand and dust particles, suffocates man and beast, penetrates every crevice in boat and baggage, clogs the works of watches, and permeates everything so effectually that the Khamâsîn dust has usually to be shaken out of portemanteaux when they are unpacked in England.

   • 1883 April, [William Edward Norris], “No New Thing”, in The Cornhill Magazine, volume XLVII, number 280, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., , chapter XXIV (“Peccavi!”), page 484:

     So he packs his portemanteau, and pays his hotel bill, and off he goes to the station without saying a word to anybody, and—and—here he is, wishing very much to make a clean breast of it, but in oh! such an awful funk that he doesn’t know how to begin.

   • 1886, Alexander Dumas, Fils, adapted and augmented by Augustin Daly, Monsieur Alphonse: A Play in Three Acts, New York, N.Y.: he Author, page 14:

     I’ve been to their home years ago, with my master; I carried his portemanteau.

   • 1891, J J Beauchamp, The Jurisprudence of the Privy Council: , Montreal, Que.: A. Periard, , page 297:

     An entry was made of soft goods with the required declaration in verification, but no mention was made of portemanteaux and hats which were packed in cases with the other goods.

   • 1893, E A McLennan, Love’s Divine Alchemy, Montreal, Que.: John Lovell & Son, , page 75:

     He packs his portemanteau, telling Harold he is going for a trip to the country, and bids farewell to all those tender ties and associations of five long years’ duration.

   • 1896, Harry Abbott, A Treatise on the Railway Law of Canada. , Montreal, Que.: C. Theoret, , pages 347–348:

     In another case the pencil sketches of an artist placed in his portemanteau were held not to be part of his ordinary baggage, so as to enable them to be conveyed free of charge.

   • 1896, Fortuné du Boisgobey, translated by H L Williams, Fontenay, the Swordsman: A Military Novel, Chicago, Ill., New York, N.Y.: Rand, McNally & Company, , page 60:

     Fontenay locked up these relics in his portemanteau, saying to himself that if the fortune of war took him into Poland at some period to come, he might give them to the parents of the brave soldier who had saved his life.

   • 1899, Special Consular Reports. Tariffs of Foreign Countries., volume XVI, part 2 (America), Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, page 615:

     Trunks, valises, portemanteaus, and hand bags containing goods shall be subject to the duties stipulated for them in the tariff, and the goods shall be separately cleared, with their proper interior packages.

   • 1902 June 14, “Japan’s Chief Man of Business Arrives. Baron Shibusawa Is Studying the World’s Finances. ”, in The New York Times, volume LI, number 16,361, New York, N.Y., page 1, column 3:

     He carried an overcoat on his arm, but he had “caught on” by the time he reached the hotel, and the retinue bidden to relegate to the bottommost parts of the portemanteaus all the wintry apparel that had been prepared for the trip to this city.

   • 1908, The Hesperian, volume 5, page 503:

     There were knickerbockers in one of his portemanteaux.

   • 1920 August 18, Lyman Abbott, “ General William Booth”, in The Outlook, volume 125, number 16, New York, N.Y.: The Outlook Company, page 679, column 2:

     The youth accepted the offer, notified his master of his purpose, packed his portemanteau, and went out to begin a new life.

   • 1921, H[élène] A Guerber, Stories of Famous Operas, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, page 192:

     This time, he is thrust aside by the vigorous young arm of Guglielmo, a young gentleman who has just stepped into the inn-yard, closely followed by a servant carrying his portemanteau.

   • 1926, George Gibbs, The Flame of Courage, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, page 40:

     […] amiability after the continued abstractions of Monsieur Davol, who followed up the steps carrying his bundle of books and his portemanteaux, with the sobriety of some steward or upper servant intent […]

   • 1930, Bernhard Guttmann, translated by Ludwig Lewisohn, Ambition, New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers , pages 5, 10, and 11:

     He went back for a moment to the stage-coach to open his portemanteau. […] When Thomasius, accompanied by a lad who carried his portemanteau, knocked at the door of the low parsonage, it flew open immediately and five pairs of childish eyes stared at him. […] Cheerfully enough, however, he slipped out of his damp cloak and shoes, drew from his portemanteau a romance of the kind of which he read many, and stretched himself out on the pallet.

   • 1935 October, R. P. Jameson, “Oberlin Pilgrims at an Oberlin Shrine”, in The Oberlin Alumni Magazine, volume 32, number 1, Oberlin, Oh.: Oberlin College, page 12, column 3:

     Once arrived in Strasbourg, on Saturday, June 22 last, and having ascertained with some difficulty the whereabouts of a couple of portemanteaux shipped by rail, we were delightfully entertained by Professor and Mme. Monod, who gave us the opportunity to meet a number of the members of the Faculty of the University of Strasbourg, where Professor Horton had been a student.

   • 1939 May 4, James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, London: Faber and Faber Limited, →OCLC; republished London: Faber & Faber Limited, 1960, →OCLC, part II, pages 240–241:

     Not true what chronicles is bringing his portemanteau priamed full potatowards.

   • 1970, Theodore Roscoe, On the Seas and in the Skies: A History of the U.S. Navy’s Air Power, New York, N.Y.: Hawthorn Books, Inc., →LCCN, page 211:

     His portemanteau crammed with drawings, Bellanca left Italy for the United States three years before World War I.

• porte-manteau

Inherited from Middle French portemanteau. By surface analysis, porte (“carries”, third-person singular present indicative of porter (“to carry”)) +‎ manteau (“coat”), literally “ carries coat”.

• IPA^(key): /pɔʁ.t(ə).mɑ̃.to/

• Audio:

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• Audio (Switzerland):

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• Rhymes: -o

portemanteau m (plural portemanteaux)

1. coat stand, coat rack

• This word does not mean the same thing as the English word portmanteau, which refers to a word made by combining two (or more) words; this concept is rather translated as mot-valise.

• → Greek: πορτμαντό (portmantó)
• → Romanian: portmantou
• → Russian: портманто (portmanto)
• → Ottoman Turkish: پورت‌ مانطو (port manto)
  • Turkish: portmanto

• “portemanteau”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.