Vol. 10 · Portmanteaus ·Early 20th century ·1905
Smog
smoke fog
- Meaning
- A thick, polluting atmospheric haze.
- Source words
- smoke + fog
- Coined by
- Dr Henry Des Voeux
- Year
- 1905
Background
Coined in a paper read to the Public Health Congress in London, describing the pollution that would later kill thousands in the 1952 Great Smog.
Early 20th century
Industrialisation generated new things that needed new names, fast. Motoring, electricity, telecommunications, and urban pollution all produced portmanteaus within a generation of their arrival.
Two words, one coinage.
Browse every portmanteau on the shelf — or cross over to the loanwords atlas.