loanword

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of loanword For instance, people, a French loanword, may be spelled peple, pepill, poeple, or poepul. Big Think, 10 Apr. 2025 The newest dictionary additions include loanwords from Southeast Asia, South Africa and Ireland. Peter Guo, NBC news, 27 Mar. 2025 In fact, Mandarin itself used thousands of loanwords from Japanese and English when new disciplines such as sociology and natural science entered China’s curricula a mere century ago. Tenzin Dorjee, Foreign Affairs, 28 Nov. 2023 During this period, more than 10,000 loanwords from French entered the English language, mostly in domains where the aristocracy held sway: the arts, military, medicine, law and religion. Phillip M. Carter, Fortune Well, 12 June 2023 Most English loanwords borrow from languages that, like English, use the Latin alphabet. Sarah Bunin Benor, The Conversation, 21 May 2020 With the mega-success of Starbucks and its various coffee competitors, BARISTA has transformed from a somewhat niche Italian loanword to a term most everyone not only knows but uses regularly. Ryan P. Smith, Smithsonian Magazine, 31 Dec. 2019 And so the language planners, led by linguist Ari Páll Kristinsson, are working furiously to match every English word or concept with an Icelandic one—giving young Icelanders no excuse for depending on loanwords learned online. Caitlin Hu, Quartz, 2 June 2019 Each provided loanwords, words adopted from a donor language without translation. Courtney Linder, The Christian Science Monitor, 19 Apr. 2018
Recent Examples of Synonyms for loanword
Noun
  • In spite of its phonetics, apparently the term is not Yiddish, but a neologism declared by a French writer of comedic phantasms to be German and intended to designate an absurd, unfathomable object that can serve all kinds of purposes.
    Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Artforum, 1 June 2025
  • Now, without finding a new emblem to rally behind, Democrats may be doing little more than battling that other neologism: MAGA.
    Kevin M. Schultz, The Conversation, 8 May 2025
Noun
  • From the July/August 2014 issue: The power of two McCartney and John Lennon were mesmerized by these nonsensical yet lyrical coinages.
    Mark Leibovich, The Atlantic, 31 Mar. 2025
  • No need for foolishly wasting precious coinage on chicken scratching.
    Lance Eliot, Forbes, 18 Mar. 2025
Noun
  • This could involve helping systems learn colloquialisms and proper usages of terms.
    Kathy Kristof, San Diego Union-Tribune, 24 Mar. 2025
  • You would be forgiven for assuming this a playful colloquialism, perhaps revealing a tenderness to the hunt.
    Cecilia Rodriguez, Forbes, 6 Mar. 2025
Noun
  • Consultants said to expect to continue hearing a variety of euphemisms about tariffs and their impact on prices.
    Jordyn Holman, New York Times, 21 May 2025
  • Americans have been living in unprecedented times – a very nice euphemism for constant crisis – for nearly a decade.
    Kelly Lawler, USA Today, 9 May 2025
Noun
  • Narrator Mary Lewis, raised in Newfoundland herself, delivers the book in a manner that seems stilted at first but grows more appealing as Lewis moves further into the story, with its pleasing archaisms and evocation of balked communication.
    Katherine A. Powers, Washington Post, 21 Jan. 2020
  • That phrase, which may strike some young American ears as an archaism if not an oxymoron, is worth unpacking, and Amis provides readers with a pocket account of the historical preconditions of his extravagant fame.
    A.O. SCOTT, New York Times, 28 Feb. 2018
Noun
  • Short left the post before her term expired to run for Mansfield mayor against incumbent Michael Evans but lost. Simmons, a financial adviser, ran to help guide Mansfield’s path as the city grows.
    Rachel Royster, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 8 June 2025
  • Trump has ramped up immigration enforcement in his second term after running on a promise to conduct mass deportations.
    Joe Hernandez, NPR, 8 June 2025
Noun
  • Then there’s Sanyu, a painter whose signature nudes — their flat perspective and flowing calligraphic lines informed as much by his Chinese art education as French modernism — now attract astronomical sums.
    Oscar Holland, CNN Money, 1 June 2025
  • The Parisians’ love of tradition and romance combined with its youthful modernism is the pull for me.
    Miles Socha, Footwear News, 24 May 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Loanword.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/loanword. Accessed 15 Jun. 2025.

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