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
  • The joke is so-so, resting upon a neologism that wryly riffs on an adjective recurrent within so much American news media these days: the unprecedented funding of ICE, the unprecedented abuse of executive power, the unprecedented complicity of the courts.
    Lauren Michele Jackson, New Yorker, 26 July 2025
  • 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
Noun
  • The Saint-Gaudens design of Lady Liberty with torch and olive branch is arguably the most iconic US coinage ever struck, with the eagle on the reverse a masterstroke of neoclassical style.
    Clem Chambers, Forbes.com, 26 Aug. 2025
  • There were a few coinages in the script, but 90 percent of the language is real.
    Seth Abramovitch, HollywoodReporter, 14 Aug. 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
  • Sometimes, this stems from their opinion that the supposedly tactful replacements for the R-word are equally if not more offensive — a classic example of the euphemism treadmill in practice.
    Hershal Pandya, Vulture, 22 Aug. 2025
  • 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
Noun
  • Like several quasi-independent regulatory agencies in the executive branch, the STB consists of five partisan board members with staggered five-year terms who oversee a staff.
    Jeremy Lott, The Washington Examiner, 5 Sep. 2025
  • Shi talked up Wolves’ transfer business and, in terms of raw numbers, his 90 per cent claim might not be too far off the mark.
    Steve Madeley, New York Times, 5 Sep. 2025
Noun
  • As evidenced when the decision to tear down and rebuild Hotel Okura Tokyo, a towering symbol of Japanese modernism, was announced in 2015.
    Isabelle Kliger, Forbes.com, 2 Sep. 2025
  • Conceived by Chesterman Design and Architecture in collaboration with artist-designer James McGrath, Southern Cross reinterprets tropical modernism through courtyards, verandas, and floating planes intended to dissolve the line between indoors and out.
    Abby Montanez, Robb Report, 28 Aug. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Loanword.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/loanword. Accessed 10 Sep. 2025.

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