calque

A word or phrase in a language formed by word-for-word or morpheme-by-morpheme translation of a word in another language.

Noun

  1. A word or phrase in a language formed by word-for-word or morpheme-by-morpheme translation of a word in another language.
    • David S. Powers, professor of Islamic history and law at Cornell, says he thinks that the word as used today is in the nature of what linguists call a calque, a borrowing from another language in literal translation […]...
    • Those phrases, translated from Spanish, are known as calques. […] The three young Miamians in the video also use “super” as an adverb, one of the calques from Spanish mentioned in Dr. Carter’s research. (“Ay, I’m super...
    • One of the primary benefits of calque is its ability to enhance cross-cultural communication. - 2024 June 7, Soumaya Amine Al Salti, “Calque Examples in Translating: Impacts on Linguistic Diversity”, in Soumaya Salti,...

    Synonyms: loan translation calquing

    Hypernyms: loan formation

    Coordinate Terms: partial calque, loanblend

Origin

From French calque (“calque”, literally “copy, tracing”), from calquer (“to copy, trace”) (whence also calk), itself borrowed from Italian calcare, from Latin calcāre (“to tread”). Doublet of calcate and calcation.

Forms

calques

Hyponyms

partial calque

Related

metaphrase

Derived

semantic calque semi-calque

Verb

  1. To adopt (a word or phrase) from one language to another by semantic translation of its parts.
    • Terms like "cloud computing" have been calqued into multiple languages, making it easier for global audiences to grasp complex technological concepts. […] For example, translating Shakespeare's works into other...

Forms

calques calquing calqued