loanshift

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)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).”

   “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.”

   “Loan translation is the only borrowing process for loanshift.”

2. (countable, uncountable)A word whose meaning has changed in this way.

verb

1. 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).”

   “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.”

   “The loanshifted category appears first as an innovation, becomes entrenched and may be conventionalized with meaning(s) specific to recipient culture.”