| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| chortle |
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| SYLLABICATION: | chor·tle |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  chôr tl |
| NOUN: | A snorting, joyful laugh or chuckle. | | INTRANSITIVE & TRANSITIVE VERB: | Inflected forms: chor·tled, chor·tling, chor·tles
To utter a chortle or express with a chortle. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Blend of chuckle and snort. | | OTHER FORMS: | chortler —NOUN
| | WORD HISTORY: | “‘O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’ He chortled in his joy.” Perhaps Lewis Carroll would chortle a bit himself to find that people are still using the word chortle, which he coined in Through the Looking-Glass, published in 1872. In any case, Carroll had constructed his word well, combining the words chuckle and snort. This type of word is called a blend or a portmanteau word. In Through the Looking-Glass Humpty Dumpty uses portmanteau to describe the word slithy, saying, “It's like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word” (the meanings being “lithe” and “slimy”).
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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