Mrs. [Agnes Smith] Lewis has correctly observed that many corrections in the old papyri (things which no doubt the διορωτής corrected) were misinterpreted by the ancients (hence what [Adalbert] Merx calls "Wanderwörte").
Source: wiktionary
Wanderwort
//ˈwɒndəˌwɜːt//
Synonyms for "wanderwort" (1 found)
Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Closest matches (1)
Noun(1 words)
Related word relations
OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.
Related terms
1 entriescoordinate
1 entrieshas context
1 entriesrelated to
3 entriesTranslations
23 translations across 19 languages.
Arabic
1 entries- لفظ جوال noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
Chinese
1 entries- 漫游词 noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
Danish
1 entries- vandreord noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
Dutch
1 entries- zwerfwoord noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
Esperanto
1 entries- vagvorto noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
Finnish
1 entries- kulkusana noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
French
2 entries- mot vagabond noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
- mot voyageur noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
German
1 entries- Wanderwort noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
Hebrew
3 entries- ונדרוורט noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
- מילת נודדת noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
- מילת תרבות נודדת noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
Hungarian
1 entries- vándorszó noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
Italian
1 entries- parola viaggiante noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
Japanese
1 entries- 放浪語 noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
Latin
1 entries- verbum peregrīnum noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
Polish
1 entries- Wanderwort noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
Russian
2 entries- бродячее слово noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
- вандерво́рт noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
Serbo-Croatian
1 entries- posuđenica noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
Spanish
1 entries- palabra viajera noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
Swedish
1 entries- vandringsord noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
Ukrainian
1 entries- вандерворт noun (loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices)
Sample sentences
6 total sentences available.
Hittite t/dapar- "leiten, verwalten, regieren" (and also with the Glossenkeil) is connected and we are in the presence of a Wanderwort that ultimately derives from the above Capp[adocian] *labar- "herrschen".
Source: wiktionary
[Diedrich Hermann] Westermann (1927) in his pioneering identification of "West Sudanic" common lexemes (Niger-Congo in modern terms) also identified Wanderworte, "wander-words" that show up in widely differing language families in similar form.
Source: wiktionary
Some of the vocabulary can be classed as Wanderwörter – items that have diffused widely and whose ultimate source is sometimes hard to discover. […] While 'crocodile' is an animal with exceptional properties which may lead to it being a common topic in interethnic conversations, the same reasons cannot be adduced for the other items above or many other Wanderwörter in this region, at least not given the cultural configuration of the recent past.
Source: wiktionary
Showing 4 of 6 available sentences.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.