loanword

American  

[lohn-wurd] / ˈloʊnˌwɜrd /

Or loan word

noun

• loanwords
  plural

1. a word in one language that has been borrowed from another language and usually naturalized, as wine, taken into Old English from Latin vinum, or macho, taken into Modern English from Spanish.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• loanwords
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of loanword

1870–75; translation of German Lehnwort

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

loanword loanwords

The sheer clip at which English words rotate in and out of the vernacular has made it difficult for any statistic to accurately capture the scale of loanword creep.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 3, 2025

Local journalists describe the scenes here as the local telenovela, a Spanish loanword meaning soap opera.

From Time ● Oct. 27, 2017

Sadly, these words failed to stick, and nowadays one is forced to answer wrong numbers on a loanword: tilifun.

From The New Yorker ● Apr. 10, 2017

For example, did you know the difference between a loanword and a calque?

From Slate ● Mar. 8, 2013

Not Eng., but a loanword from O. N., and as Kluge P. G.2 I, 939, has pointed out shows also Norse influence in the Midland dial.

From Scandinavian influence on Southern Lowland Scotch by George Tobias Flom

Japan’s colonization of Korea from 1910 to 1945 introduced loanwords including gao, Japanese for “face,” adapted into Korean as “put on gao,” which means to put on airs.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 3, 2025

During World War I, “hamburger steak” became “Salisbury steak,” part of an effort to curb the use of German loanwords, according to H.L.

From New York Times ● Oct. 8, 2021

Software developers should enable individuals to submit loanwords not just within their own accounts but to the company’s general dictionary.

From Slate ● Apr. 14, 2021

As for the rest of the vocabulary, about half comes from Italian, with English and French loanwords.

From The New Yorker ● Aug. 27, 2018

I have adopted the following tests of form, meaning and distribution in determining the Scand. source of loanwords: 1.

From Scandinavian influence on Southern Lowland Scotch by George Tobias Flom

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