Loanshift
noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The situation in which a word changes or extends its meaning under the influence of another language. countable, uncountable
"As linguists, anthropologists, and others involved in translation realize, the boundaries of exchange between languages are not impermeable to loanshift of meanings (Lehiste 1988:20)."
- 2 A word whose meaning has changed in this way. countable, uncountable
- 1 To change a word in this way.
"In the contest between a Spanish word and an English word for its place in the new lexical gap (the right end of a broken line), in loan homonymy an English word wins (chanzaâ‚‚) and in loanshifting a Spanish word wins (apertura, extended)."
Example
More examples"As linguists, anthropologists, and others involved in translation realize, the boundaries of exchange between languages are not impermeable to loanshift of meanings (Lehiste 1988:20)."
Etymology
From loan + shift.
More for "loanshift"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.