Meaning of wanderword | Babel Free

Definitions

Synonym of Wanderwort (“a loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices”).

Examples

“Considering the mileage it has achieved as a horizon wanderword in divers shapes representable as sV(l)mV(n)-, the Latin salmo (salmonis) cited by Pliny and Ausonius is vexing as regards its etymology, a quality it shares with many other Roman and Greek [...]”

“It is perhaps, therefore, a late 'wander-word' of the southeast of the IE world, Semitic and Sumerian.”

“In this general context, Mallory's dismissal (1989, 150) of this “comparison that simply will not go away” as a mere “wander word” clearly illustrates his ideological position.”

“Like the static Bangla she describes in the extract above — and like the traditional mother — Mukherjee's wanderwords usually stay at home, in narrative strands set in India, their local colour harmoniously interwoven with her fiction's literary English.”

CEFR level