A loanword (or loan word)'s a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. General By contrast, a calque or loan translation's a related concept, whereby it's the meaning or idiom that's borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword's itself a calque of the German Lehnwort, while calque's a loanword from French. Loanwords can also be called "borrowings". Although of long-standing usage, neither loanword nor borrowing correctly conveys the… (More on Loanword)