different between portmanteau vs acronym

English

Alternative forms

• (travelling case): portmantua
• (schoolbag): (shortening) port, (shortening) school port

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /p??t?mæn.t??/
• (US) enPR: pôrtm?'nt?, pô'rtm?nt??, IPA^(key): /p???t?mænto?/, /?p???tmæn?to?/

Etymology 1

French portemanteau (“coat stand”), from porte (“carry”) + manteau (“coat”).

Noun

portmanteau (plural portmanteaus or portmanteaux)

1. A large travelling case usually made of leather, and opening into two equal sections.
2. (Australia, dated) A schoolbag.
3. (archaic) A hook on which to hang clothing.

Translations

Etymology 2

First used by Lewis Carroll in Through The Looking Glass to describe the words he coined in Jabberwocky.

Adjective

portmanteau (not comparable)

1. (attributive, linguistics) Made by combining two (or more) words, stories, etc., in the manner of a linguistic portmanteau.

Noun

portmanteau (plural portmanteaus or portmanteaux)

1. (linguistics) A portmanteau word.

   Synonyms: blend, frankenword, portmanteau word

Translations

Derived terms

• portmanteau film
• portmanteau word

Verb

portmanteau (third-person singular simple present portmanteaus, present participle portmanteauing, simple past and past participle portmanteaued)

1. To make a portmanteau word.

See also

• List of portmanteau words defined in Wiktionary
• Wikipedia article on portmanteaus (cases and words)

English

Etymology

Borrowed from German Akronym, from Ancient Greek ????? (ákron, “end, peak”) and ????? (ónuma, “name”), equivalent to acro- (“high; beginning”) +? -onym (“name”). Modelled after Homonym and Synonym, first attested in German in the early 1900s and in English in 1940.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?æk.??.n?m/

Noun

acronym (plural acronyms)

1. (linguistics) An abbreviation formed by the initial letters of other words, sometimes exclusively such abbreviations when pronounced as a word (as "laser") rather than as individual letters (initialisms such as "TNT").
   • 1940, W. Muir & al. translating L. Feuchtwanger's Paris Gazette, iii, xlvii, p. 518:

     Pee-gee-enn. It's an acronym, that's what it is. That's what they call words made up of initials.

   • 2014 September 23, "Choosing a Primary School: A Teacher's Guide for Parents", The Guardian:

     Some teachers festoon every spare inch of wall with vocabulary choices or maths techniques to use, which look great at first, but to some children might appear quite daunting. You'll probably see unfamiliar acronyms such as Walt (We Are Learning To). Be sure to ask what they stand for and how they are used in practice.

2. (linguistics) An abbreviation formed by the beginning letters or syllables of other words (as "Benelux").
   • 1950, Simeon Potter, Our Language, p. 163:

     Acronyms or telescoped names like nabisco from National Biscuit Company.

Usage notes

The broader sense of acronym inclusive of initialisms (as "TNT") is sometimes proscribed, but is the term's original and more common meaning. Within Wiktionary, however, the template {{acronym of}} is used for the more restrictive sense of the word and is distinguished from {{initialism of}}. The status of an acronym's pronunciation is not always obvious, as some initialisms have gained interstitial vowels to ease their expression (as /?w?zd?l/ for "WSDL") and others are pronounced alternatively as words or initialisms (as /?si?kw?l/ or /?skju??l/ for "SQL").

Acronyms in all senses may variously be written in all capital letters (as "UNESCO" or "WYSIWYG") or in lower case (as "scuba" or "sitcom"), according to the degree to which they have come to be seen as words separate from their derivation. American style guides tend to favor the use of capital spelling for pronounced acronyms of four letters or fewer (as "NATO") whereas British style guides tend to favor standard capitalization of pronounced acronyms as though they were a standard word ("Nato"). Acronyms formed from beginning syllables are sometimes written in camel case (as "EpiPen" or "CHiPs"), although this may be precluded by style guides. Mixed capitalization is also sometimes used when acronyms include words usually left uncapitalized in title case but which have been included for pronunciation or clarity (as "VaR" for "Value at Risk"); in other cases, the standard acronym capitalizes such minor words as well (as "TOEFL" for the "Test of English as a Foreign Language").

Like all abbreviations, acronyms were formerly usually punctuated with full stops or periods to mark the divisions between the original words (as "U.S.A." or "P.R.C.") but this punctuation is increasingly omitted, particularly in the case of acronyms treated as generic words (as "radar" and "sonar") and in acronyms formed from syllables rather than letters. Folk etymologies frequently imagine acronyms for such common words as "fuck", "shit", and "posh" but the earliest English acronym listed by the OED is a form of "abjad" in 1793 and they did not become common until the world wars of the early 20th century.

Synonyms

• (broader sense): initialism

Hyponyms

• (all senses): abbreviation

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

acronym (third-person singular simple present acronyms, present participle acronyming or acronymming, simple past and past participle acronymed or acronymmed)

1. To form into an acronym.

See also

• Category:English shortenings - a list of all abbreviated forms
• backronym
• initialism
• mnemonic

References

Anagrams

• romancy