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
  • The economic agenda put forth by the Populists covered a wide range of issues, including silver coinage and the nationalization of railroads and telecommunication firms.
    Joseph Thorndike, Forbes.com, 21 July 2025
  • In more recent years, Steve Stivers, a Republican congressman from Ohio who served in the House from 2011 to 2021, led multiple unsuccessful attempts to revise coinage laws.
    Gordon G. Chang, Newsweek, 24 Jan. 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
  • This phrase has spun into a corporate euphemism, often one in which the motive is already pre-drawn: conversion.
    Aditya Vikram Kashyap, Forbes.com, 14 Aug. 2025
  • And now Netanyahu announces a military takeover of Gaza City… which most informed commentators understand as a euphemism for the colonization of Gaza.
    Walden Green, Pitchfork, 10 Aug. 2025
Noun
  • During his first term, Trump issued a memo ordering that immigrants without lawful status be excluded from the population count used to apportion House seats and repeatedly sought to add a citizenship question to the census for the first time since 1950.
    Solcyré Burga, Time, 7 Aug. 2025
  • People are starting to realize just how far these humanoid robots have come in terms of coordination and agility.
    Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 7 Aug. 2025
Noun
  • The combo of a white tank top and jeans always looks crisp, and with brown boots the whole ensemble becomes a lesson in clean modernism.
    Alex Sales, Glamour, 29 June 2025
  • A lot of the spiritual history wasn't, uh, kind of scrubbed away in with modernism and with certain contemporary laws.
    Outside Online, Outside Online, 25 June 2025

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Loanword.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/loanword. Accessed 20 Aug. 2025.

More from Merriam-Webster on loanword

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!