reborrowing

English[edit]

Examples (linguistics)
English football → German Fußball → English foosball

reborrowing (plural reborrowings)

(linguistics) A word that passed from language A into language B and thence back into language A. Such words may have changed in meaning and/or form.
- 1990, John Ayto, “flan”, in Dictionary of Word Origins, New York: Arcade, →ISBN, page 230:
  The word flan itself is a relatively recent addition to English, adopted on our behalf from French by the chef Alexis Soyer (a Frenchman working in England), but in that form it is in fact simply a reborrowing of a word which originally crossed the Channel in the 13th century as flawn, denoting some sort of custard tart or cheesecake.
Something reborrowed.
- 2020, John Gilligan, Mike Wright, Private Equity Demystified, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 214:
  The borrower will usually argue that the accordion should be considered as a reborrowing of debt already repaid, and therefore should be a redraw of tranche A first.

word taken back from another language

reborrowing