A portmanteau is a large suitcase. The word comes from French porter carry and manteau mantle, or cloak â so it's what you carry your clothes in. Or, a portmanteau is a word made by combining two other words. You might remember portmanteau from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, where Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice the portmanteau word, in which two meanings are packed up into one word. So, according to Humpty Dumpty, slithy means lithe and slimy, and mimsy is flimsy and miserable.
to be as ugly as a mud fence definition, to be as ugly as a mud fence meaning | English dictionary. Search also in: Web News Encyclopedia Images. ugly. adj , -lier, -liest. 1 of unpleasant or unsightly appearance. 2 repulsive, objectionable, or displeasing in any way. war is ugly. 3 ominous or menacing.
Meaning lowest or worst of anything is from 1580s. As a word for coffee, it is hobo slang from 1925; as a word for opium from 1922. To throw or hurl mud make disgraceful accusations is from 1762. To say (one's) name is mud and mean (one) is discredited is first recorded 1823, from mud in obsolete sense of a stupid twaddling fellow (1708). Mud in your eye as a toast recorded from 1912, American English.