Words or phrases adopted from one language into another. Also refers to money or items that have been borrowed.
From Old English 'borgian' meaning 'to lend, be surety for', from 'borg' (pledge, security). The linguistic sense developed in the 19th century as scholars began systematically studying how languages adopt words from each other.
English is perhaps the world's greatest borrower - we've taken 'kindergarten' from German, 'pizza' from Italian, 'karaoke' from Japanese, and thousands more, often keeping their original pronunciations just barely recognizable. Linguistic borrowing is so natural that most speakers don't realize they're using foreign words; 'salary' comes from Latin 'salarium' (salt money), and 'admiral' traces back to Arabic 'amir al-bahr' (commander of the sea).
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