Blend (linguistics)

In linguistics, a blend word or a blend is a word formed from parts of two or more other words. These parts are sometimes, but not always, morphemes.

Blends abridge then combine lexemes to form a new word. Defining a true blend is complicated by the difficulty of determining which parts of the new word are "recoverable" (have roots which can be distinguished).

Blends can be divided into three groups:

Most blends are formed by one of the following methods:

A blended word may undergo further modification in form or meaning over time, and the meanings of its parts can become obsolete. Malinger may have developed from a blend in old French of malade (ill), maigre (meager) and haingre (haggard). When two words are combined in their entirety, the result is considered a compound word rather than a blend. For example, bagpipe is a compound, not a blend, of bag and pipe.

Blending can also apply to roots rather than words, for instance in Israeli Hebrew:

"There are two possible etymological analyses for Israeli Hebrew כספר kaspár ‘bank clerk, teller’. The first is that it consists of (Hebrew>)Israeli כסף késef ‘money’ and the (International/Hebrew>)Israeli agentive suffix ר- -ár. The second is that it is a quasi-portmanteau word which blends כסף késef ‘money’ and (Hebrew>)Israeli ספר √spr ‘count’. Israeli Hebrew כספר kaspár started as a brand name but soon entered the common language. Even if the second analysis is the correct one, the final syllable ר- -ár apparently facilitated nativization since it was regarded as the Hebrew suffix ר- -år (probably of Persian pedigree), which usually refers to craftsmen and professionals, for instance as in Mendele Mocher Sforim’s coinage סמרטוטר smartutár ‘rag-dealer’."

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Wikipedia