Vol. 10 · Portmanteaus ·The Victorian portmanteau ·1823
Anecdotage
anecdote dotage
- Meaning
- The stage of life when one tells rambling old-person stories.
- Source words
- anecdote + dotage
- Coined by
- John Wilkes (attrib.) / Benjamin Disraeli
- Year
- 1823
Background
Disraeli used it in *Lothair* (1870) with the gloss "when a man falls into his anecdotage." The word is in the OED but remains gently archaic.
The Victorian portmanteau
Lewis Carroll didn't invent portmanteau-making, but he named the technique and demonstrated it with enough flair that the word-class is often traced to him. Two of the words here are direct Carroll coinages.
Two words, one coinage.
Browse every portmanteau on the shelf — or cross over to the loanwords atlas.