loanshift

loanshift noun: the situation in which a word changes or extends its meaning under the influence of another language.

Noun

loanshift (countable and uncountable, plural loanshifts)

The situation in which a word changes or extends its meaning under the influence of another language.
- 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).1998, Jeffrey Anderson, “Ethnolinguistic Dimensions of Northern Arapaho Language Shift”, in Anthropological Linguistics, volume 40, Bloomington, Ind.: Department of Anthropology, Indiana University...
- The writer found 40 data that were categorized as Indonesian borrowing words of loanword type. However, the writer did not find any data which belong to loanshift.2017, Siti Khotijatur Rahm, An Analysis of Indonesian Borrowing Words in The Jakarta Post Newspaper, Bangkalan: Trunojoyo University
A word whose meaning has changed in this way.

loanshift (third-person singular simple present loanshifts, present participle loanshifting, simple past and past participle loanshifted)

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 (chanza₂) and in loanshifting a Spanish word wins (apertura, extended).1972, Anthony F. Beltramo, Lexical and Morphological Aspects of Linguistic Acculturation by Mexican Americans in San José, California, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University, →OCLC, page 125
- Early French and English explorers and settlers had never seen a bison before, and thus lacked a proper term for it. So they borrowed—or loanshifted—the name of an animal already familiar to them: buffalo.2017 August, Neal Rappleye, ““Put Away Childish Things”: Learning to Read the Book of Mormon Using Mature Historical Thought”, in FAIR, Redding, Calif., archived from the original on 28 Apr 2021

கடன் பெயர்ச்சி, கடனாட்சித் தழுவல்

Loan translation is the only borrowing process for loanshift.2021, Nurul Chojimah, Estu Widodo, “The Borrowing Process of English Covid-19-Related Words into Indonesian”, in Humanus, volume 20, number...
The loanshifted category appears first as an innovation, becomes entrenched and may be conventionalized with meaning(s) specific to recipient culture.2020, Jadwiga Linde-Usiekniewicz, “Conceptual blends in Polish anti-refugee rhetoric”, in Cognitive Linguistics, volume 31, number 4...

Noun
plural	loanshifts
Verb
third-person singular present	loanshifts
present participle	loanshifting
past participle	loanshifted
past	loanshifted

From loan + shift.

What does loanshift mean?: Loanshift means the situation in which a word changes or extends its meaning under the influence of another language.
What is loanshift in Tamil?: Loanshift in Tamil is கடன் பெயர்ச்சி, கடனாட்சித் தழுவல். See Loanshift meaning in Tamil.
How do you use loanshift in a sentence?: Loan translation is the only borrowing process for loanshift.
What part of speech is loanshift?: Loanshift can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of loanshift?: The plural of loanshift is loanshifts.

Adapted from Wiktionary: loanshift (page history and authors); loanshift (Tamil Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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