Portmanteau (luggage)
A portmanteau is a piece of luggage, usually made of leather and opening into two equal parts. Some are large, upright, and hinged at the back and enable hanging up clothes in one half,[1] while others are much smaller bags (such as Gladstone bags) with two equally sized compartments.[2]
The word derives from the French word portemanteau (from porter, "to carry", and manteau, "coat") which nowadays means a coat rack but was in the past also used to refer to a traveling case or bag for clothes.[3][4]
Portmanteau mail bag
In the 1700s, the term also described a mail bag.[5] This continued into the 1800s for bags used by the United States Postal Service.[6][7] An 1823 resolution in Congress further stated that "locks... will be placed on the portmanteaus containing the principal mails [which] can only be opened... at the distributing offices."[8]
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