What does "loanword" mean?

A word directly taken into one language from another one.

What is a synonym for "loanword"?

Common synonyms include: borrowing, borrowing, foreign, foreign word, gainword, gainword.

Loanword

//ˈloʊnˌwɝd// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

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."
2
a word borrowed from another language; e.g. ‘blitz’ is a German word borrowed into modern English wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

borrowing borrowing foreign foreign word gainword gainword

Antonyms

All antonyms

false cognate

Example

More examples

""Calque" is a loanword and "loanword" is a calque."

Etymology

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

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.