In the field of linguistics, when two words are combined into one word, the resulting new word is called a “blend word” or more specifically, as is the case with today’s Dictionary.com Word of the DayDictionary.com Word of the Day, a “portmanteau”. Wikipedia gives an excellent definition with examples for the word portmanteau:

A portmanteau word is a linguistic blend of words, in which parts of multiple words, or their phones (sounds), and their meanings are combined into a new word. A portmanteau word fuses both the sounds and the meanings of its components, as in smog, coined by blending smoke and fog, or motel, from motor and hotel.  In linguistics, a portmanteau is defined as a single morph that represents two or more morphemes. (In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest grammatical unit in a language. In other words, it is the smallest meaningful unit of a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology.)

“Rollick” is thought to be the result of blending the words “romp” and “frolick”, entering the English language around the early 1800’s.

Were the early 1800’s particularly rollick-worthy? My inquiring mind needed to know! So I launched google in a search of historical events of the 1800’s (or 19^th century). Here’s what I found:

This is why I love Fridays!  I learn so much! I hope you have a great weekend. Get out and rollick a bit! See you next week!

To Rollick or Not to Rollick…

Why simply frolick
or just romp, for that matter,
when one can rollick!

kat – 21 October 2016