calque
noun
- word or expression adopted from a foreign language by translation of its constituent morphemes
verb
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L585536 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /kælk/
noun
Etymology: 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.
- 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 bloated.”)”
verb
Etymology: 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.
- 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 languages often involves calquing phrases to maintain the rhythm and metaphorical richness of the original.”