loanword

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
12
Words With Friends
14
Letters
8
Pronunciation
/ˈloʊnˌwɝd/ (US)
See all 2 pronunciations
/ˈloʊnˌwɝd/ (US) · /ˈləʊnˌwɜː(ɹ)d/ (UK)

Definition of loanword

1 sense · 1 part of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. A word directly taken into one language from another one.
    “"Calque" is a loanword with French origins, and "loanword" is a calque with German origins.”
    “New words, and particularly loanwords, are simplified, and hence naturalized in American much more quickly than in English. Employé has long since become employee in our newspapers, and asphalte has lost its final e, and manœuvre has become maneuver, and pyjamas has become pajamas.”
    “This searching was facilitated by the author's knowledge of the vagaries of Anglo-Indian spelling and the numerous colonial-era transliteration systems used for loanwords from Indian languages.”
    “Indeed, in 1957 Xenophon Zolotas, the then governor of the Bank of Greece, gave two speeches to the IMF that contained just Greek loanwords apart from the inevitable basic English. (Example: “Our policies should be based more on economic and less on political criteria.”)”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

A calque of German Lehnwort, equivalent to loan + word. Compare West Frisian lienwurd, Dutch leenwoord, Danish låneord, Swedish lånord, Icelandic lánsorð.

Hooks

1 extension · 1 back

A single letter you can add to loanword to make another valid word.

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