Calque

Calque is a noun that refers to a word that comes from one language and enters another with the same meaning.

Our word of the day comes from the French word calquer (kal KAY) which means ‘copy.’ When a word gets copied from one language to another it is a calque. It may be helpful to remember that calque itself is a calque. Here’s an example:

For an English speaker, Spanish is a relatively easy language to learn. Because there are so many calques, It’s not so difficult to remember Spanish words that are the same in English.