Word.ws English Dictionary

Danglish

Danglish proper noun: an informal variety of language that mixes elements of Danish and English languages.

Proper noun (1)

Danglish

  1. An informal variety of language that mixes elements of Danish and English languages.
    • We have our languages, our identity and our culture, and we prefer to muddle through by speaking some sort of “Swenglish”, “Danglish” or even “Finnlandic” with each other during the breaks and at dinner.2012, Karin Arvidsson, Does the Nordic Region Speak with a Forked Tongue?, page 98
  2. (derogatory, often) English writing or speech strongly influenced by Danish.
    • Many thanks to the people who took time to help me stamp out “Danglish” through their reviews and comments: Chris Demetriou, Paul Richards, Brian Somers, Nik Clayton, and Hanne Munkholm. Any remaining insults to proper use of english language are my own fault.2002, Poul-Henning Kamp, “Rethinking /dev and devices in the UNIX kernel”, in Proceedings of BSDCon
  3. (derogatory, often) Danish speech featuring many English loanwords or nonce borrowings.
    • I generally try not to speak Danglish (except with my husband, then everything goes. We even throw in a bit of German). Still, it does happen occasionally, if I can’t remember a word, if the person I’m speaking to understands the other language and there’s better word for something, such as...2018 April 22, May-Lin Demetriou, “Do Danish people who speak English think in Danglish?”, in Quora

Proper noun (2)

Danglish

  1. A surname.
    • For we learn from the Illustrated Inventor, that Dr. Danglish, of Great Malvern, in England, has patented an improvement on the preparation of dough1858 December, W.A. Alcott, “Manufacture of bread”, in The New England Farmer, page 574

Origin of Danglish

Blend of Danish + English.

Compare Daglish, from Dalgleish, from Scottish Gaelic dail (“field”) + glas (“green”).

Questions about Danglish

What does Danglish mean?
Danglish means an informal variety of language that mixes elements of Danish and English languages.
What part of speech is Danglish?
Danglish is a proper noun.

Words near Danglish in the dictionary

  1. dangling pointer
  2. dangling pointers
  3. dangling the Dunlops
  4. danglingly
  5. danglings
  6. Danglish
  7. dangly
  8. dangly bits
  9. Dangme
  10. dangnabbit
  11. dango

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Danglish (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Danglish.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/danglish. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.