11 English Words That Are Surprisingly Borrowed from French 1.

Example of borrowed words in english. English words of African origin. Sometimes its harder to see the line between popular and learned loanwords. The waves of borrowing during periods of especially strong cultural contacts are not sharply delimited and can overlap.

While it might look English and sound English money is actually a word that was used in France in various other versions before it made its way over to England and beyond. From Old Spanish briza. Skin comes from Old Norse too.

The English language has inherited quite a few French cognates which means that French words are used in English. These periods coincide with times of major cultural contact between English speakers and those speaking other languages. Something Borrowed English Words with Foreign OriginsAnonymous Greek The word anonymous comes from the Greek word annumos.

Here are some examples. English has gone through many periods in which large numbers of words from a particular language were borrowed. Hummus or humous Loan-translation.

A gentle blow or moderate current of air. The word ballet for example comes from French and the terms for the different positions and steps in ballet have retained their original French names. Castle mansion teepee wigwam igloo bungalow.

In English there are also some borrowed words that are actually known to foreigners such as decollete Zeitgeist graff and many others such as street city master river that have become so authentic that many difficult to distinguish from the mother tongue of English. However the specialized terms in ballet could also be. It has borrowed words for cultural institutions eg.