Word.ws English Dictionary

wanderwort

Syllables: Wan·der·wort/ˈwɒndəˌwɜːt/US/ˈwɑndɚˌwɚt/

wanderwort is the alternative letter-case form of Wanderwort.

Noun capitalized: Wanderwort

Wanderwort (plural Wanderwörter or Wanderworte or Wanderworts)

  1. A loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices.
    • 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").1914, H[erman] C[harles] Hoskier, “B in St. Luke’s Gospel”, in Codex B and Its Allies: A Study and an Indictment, part I, London: Bernard Quaritch, →OCLC, page 25
    • 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".1966, Yoël L. Arbeitman, quoting Heinz Kronasser, “Iranian ‘Scribe’, Anatolian ‘Ruler’, or Neither: A City’s Rare Chances for ‘Leadership’”, in Yoël L. Arbeitman, editor, Fucus: A Semitic/Afrasian...
    Synonyms:
    wanderword

Synonyms of wanderwort

Forms of wanderwort

pluralwanderworts
pluralWanderwörter
pluralWanderworte
pluralWanderworts
alternative formwanderwort

Origin of wanderwort

Unadapted borrowing from German Wanderwort, from wandern (“to wander”) + Wort (“word”). Wandern is ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European *wendʰ- (“to turn, to wind”), and Wort from Proto-Indo-European *werh₁- (“to say, speak”). The plural forms Wanderworte and Wanderwörter are also borrowed from German Wanderworte and Wanderwörter.

Questions about wanderwort

What does wanderwort mean?
Wanderwort means a loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices.
What is wanderwort the alternative letter-case form of?
Wanderwort is the alternative letter-case form of Wanderwort.
What part of speech is wanderwort?
Wanderwort is a noun.
How do you pronounce wanderwort?
Wanderwort is pronounced /ˈwɒndəˌwɜːt/ (UK).
What is the plural of wanderwort?
The plural of wanderwort is wanderworts.

Words near wanderwort in the dictionary

  1. wanderstar
  2. wanderstars
  3. wanderu
  4. wanderword
  5. wanderwords
  6. wanderwort
  7. Wanderworte
  8. wanderworts
  9. Wanderwörter
  10. wandery
  11. wanderyear

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wanderwort (page history and authors); Wanderwort (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Wanderwort.wav.

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