calque
Americannoun
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a loan translation, especially one resulting from bilingual interference in which the internal structure of a borrowed word or phrase is maintained but its morphemes are replaced by those of the native language, as German halbinsel for peninsula.
verb (used with object)
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calques,
present (3rd person singular)
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calqued,
past participle, past
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calquing
present participle
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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calquesimple
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calquessimple
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have calquedperfect
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has calquedperfect
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am calquingprogressive
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are calquingprogressive
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is calquingprogressive
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have been calquingperfect progressive
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has been calquingperfect progressive
Past
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calquedsimple
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had calquedperfect
-
was calquingprogressive
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were calquingprogressive
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had been calquingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of calque
1655–65; < French, noun derivative of calquer to copy, base on < Italian calcare to trace over, tread < Latin: to trample
Explanation
A calque is a word-for-word translation from one language to another. When you take a phrase in French, for example, and translate each word literally into English, that's a calque. There are many examples in English of common phrases that are calques, translated from other languages. An "Adam's apple," for example, is a calque of the French pomme d'Adam, and "beer garden" is a calque of the German Biergarten. In both cases, the English phrases came from a direct, literal translation of the original. Another term for this is a "loan translation." In French, calque means "copy," from calquer, "to trace by rubbing."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
For example, did you know the difference between a loanword and a calque?
From Slate ● Mar. 8, 2013
By the way, I knew the difference between a loanword and a calque and the Defiant Ones, but not what was going on in the car with Giardia.
From Slate ● Mar. 8, 2013
This done, one of the knights closed his visor, and the other tried to follow his example, but the calque, dented from the effects of a blow, refused to allow the visor to descend.
From The Winning of the Golden Spurs by Percy F. (Percy Francis) Westerman
The French didn’t have a word for the flower, so they too borrowed the concept of “lion’s tooth,” calquing it as “dent de lion.”
From Scientific American ● Jun. 14, 2023
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
