Meaning of xenism | Babel Free

Definitions

A word used in utterances of a language but generally marked as foreign.

Examples

“The first stage⟳ is when a word from one language is used in an utterance of another language in order⟳ to create⟳ a somewhat exotic effect. At this stage⟳, the word is not a borrowing, but rather what they term a xenism. An example of a xenism used in an English sentence would be At the harbour, we went for a sail⟳ in a gulet, where gulet is the word for a type⟳ of Turkish sail⟳ boat, which has no real equivalent in English.”

“My objective was to collect⟳ all loanwords, such that this work⟳ is as complete⟳ as possible, though some words may not be commonly used by speakers of a given language that seem to be pure Arabic xenisms (see⟳ Swahili hamsa ‘five’ < ḫamsa 841).”

CEFR level