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gleets glove, feet anonymous Newly Coined Have you seen five fingers running shoes shaped like gloves but worn on your feet? Try calling them gleets. Ths portmanteau word has been submitted by an anonymous visitor to Electricka's web site. (Visitor: Your offering is clever, and The Muse Of Language Arts hereby thanks you for it. Maybe your name will catch on.)
queasing quantitative, easing anonymous visitor Authentic

Quantitative easing is a monetary policy sometimes used by cental banks in times of economic downturn.

Queasing is a name for the vague, amorphous, sickly feeling—a queasy feeling—you get from negative economic news resulting from quantitative easing, but you have the devil's own job to understand its full horror.

For more information about quantative easing, visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing

squiddle squeezed, middle anonymous visitor Conjecture

The squiddle class is the British middle class social group that finds itself in need of belt-tightening during harsh economic times.

Applies to politics and to the so-called middle or working classes. May apply particularly to employees in the public sector. May also apply to U.S. civil servants.
voluntold volunteer, told anonymous visitor Newly Coined

The act of being told you are volunteering for any specific task and/or assignment.

This is not quite a valid portmanteau word because the word told appears in its entirety; it's not a blend of the word told. But we'll look the other way because it catches an idea we haven't run across yet in any other portmanteau word, the idea that you can be forced to volunteer.

We don't know why our volunteer wishes to remain anonymous but it's a good bet it's because he's been told to volunteer for something.
whirlicane whirlwind, hurricane DC Comics Newly Coined

A cyclone or similar weather phenomenon.

The name of a DC Comics supervillain possessing the force of a hurricane and the speed of a whirlwind. His motto: Nothing can stop a Whirlicane.

sonar sound, navigation, ranging ETAF Staff Authentic

A method for detecting and locating objects submerged in water by echolocation. Also, the apparatus used in sonar. In Britain, called asdic, an acronym which stands for anti-submarine detection investigation committee.
cablegram cable, telegram ETAF Staff Authentic From cablegrams and telegraphy.
pixel picture, element ETAF Staff

The smallest piece or unit of visual information in a computer display or other kind of digital display system. A dot.

The word is a blend of the words picture and element. A pixel is a picture element.
ruckus ruction, rumpus ETAF Staff

A ruckus is a noisy commotion, a fracas, a rumpus, a heated contoversy.

A rumpus is a noisy or violent disturbance, a commotion, an uproar. A ruction is a distrubance, quarrel, or row. Without ruction, a ruckus would merely be a noisy commotion; with ruction, it's a noisy quarrel or row.
stuka Sturz, Kampfflugzeug ETAF Staff

A stuka is a German two-seated dive bomber with a single in-line engine, used by the Luftwaffe in World War II.

Stuka is a German portmanteau word consisting of Sturz, which means dive, and Kampfflugzeug, which means combat plane.

teeny tiny, wee ETAF Staff Authentic

Teeny, which m tiny, is a blend of the words tiny and wee. When tiny isn't small enough, the blend with wee emphasizes the idea of tiny.
tigon, liger tiger, lion ETAF Staff Authentic

tigon, liger

A tigon is the hybrid offspring of a male tiger and a female lion. A liger is the hybrid offspring of a male lion and a female tiger.

The word tigon is a blend of the words tiger and lion, with the male tiger's name in the lead. The word liger is also a blend of the words tiger and lion, but with male lion's name in the lead.
spam spiced, ham ETAF Staff Authentic

Spam is a canned food product consisting of a mixture of chopped pork shoulder and ham formed into a solid block. Spam is also the name of a kind of disruptive and unwanted email messages posted on computer networks.

The word spam, which is trademarked by Hormel, is a portmanteau word that stands for spiced ham. It's a contraction of spiced and ham.

In its other sense, spam is unsolicited commercial electronic messages in the form of e-mail, blogs, social networking sites, newsgroups, and cellular telephones.

Hormel's Spam and electronic spam are closely related. Hormel's Spam product was the inspiration for applying the name Spam to electronic messages. In what way does does the word Spam apply to spam? Hormel's Spam applies to spam electronic messages because the repeated electronic mass mailings evoke the same disgust and jaded boredom in many email recipients that repeated servings of the food product evoke in Spam eaters.

  • Explore Spam, the food product, at Wikipedia's page on Spam (food): click here.
  • Explore spam, the electronic messages, at the Wikipedia page on Spam (electronic): click here.
  • Explore Spam, the Monty Python comedy sketch, at the Wikipedia page on Spam (Monty Python): click here.
  • See the original Monty Python Spam skit on YouTube: click here.
  • Explore Spam musubi, the Hawaiian dish made from salted rice with a slice of Spam. Visit the Wikipedia page called Spam musubi: click here.
  • Visit the Hormel Spam web site: click here.
  • Explore Spam in many of its dreaded and beloved aspects. Visit the SPAM web site: click here.
palimony pal, alimony ETAF Staff Authentic

Palimony is a benefit awarded to one of the partners in a romantic relationship after the breakup of that relationship following a long period of living together unmarried.

To qualify as alimony, the allowance must be paid to a spouse or ex-spouse. Therefore, if the partners in a breakup aren't or weren't spouses, alimony can't be granted. Palimony can take its place.

Palimony is a blend of the words pal and alimony. Since the non-spouse is someone who is not a spouse or an ex-spouse; the non-spouse is called a pal.
quasar quasi-stellar radio source, star ETAF Staff Authentic

In the field of astrophysics and astronomy, one of over a thousand known extragalactic objects, starlike in appearance and having spectra with characteristically large redshifts, that are thought to be the most distant and most luminous objects in the universe. Also called quasi-stellar object.

Quasar is a portmanteau blend of the words quasi- and stellar in the term quasi-stellar radio source.

When quasars were discovered in the 1950s, speculation held them to be star-like sources of powerful radio waves, and the term stellar was blended with the term radio source in the portmanteau word that names them.

Today it's understood that a quasar is not a single object like a star; it's a compact, highly luminous region (an accretion disk) at the center of a very old, very distant massive galaxy that surrounds a supermassive black hole at its center.
bionics biology, electronics ETAF Staff Authentic

Bionics is the field in which devices and mechanical parts are designed and constructed by combining mechanical and electronic engineering to assist humans in performing difficult, dangerous, or intricate tasks, as by supplementing or duplicating parts of the body.
tractorcade tractor, cavalcade ETAF Staff Authentic

A procession or parade of automobiles or other motor vehicles. A portmanteau blend of motor and -cade, where -cade is a combining form extracted from cavalcade

.
quark question, mark ETAF Staff Authentic

In the field of cablegrams and telegraphy, quark is a portmanteau word combining the words question and mark. In this context, the word quark is a name for the telegraphy code that represents a question mark symbol.

Quark is a standard English verb meaning to caw or croak. In this context it is not a portmanteau word.

In physics, a quark is any of the hypothetical particles and antiparticles which are believed to constitute all matter. It is not a portmanteau word.

The word entered the field of physics in 1963 when physicist Murray Gell-Mann gave the name quark to the then-hypothetical theoretical particles of matter which he had conceived.

Gell-Mann named his particles quarks because he associated them with a word in Joyce's masterpiece, Finnegans Wake.

Lines from a poem in Joyce's book read: Three quarks for Muster Mark!/Sure he hasn't got much of a bark/And sure any he has it's all beside the mark. These three lines come from a larger poem that's well worth reading. It's one of Joyce's many tours de force.

Many people believe that quark is a portmanteau word coined by Lewis Carroll. Research by The Muse Of Language Arts has not turned up any solid evidence to this effect.
bit binary, unit ETAF Staff Authentic From computers.

 

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