‘borrowing’ words

May 17th, 2008 § 0 comments

When people talk about languages ‘borrowing’ words, they generally mean copying.

Are there any cases of actual borrowing? i.e. Language B copies a word from Language B. The word evolves inside Language B, and then A copies it back with the new meaning. Bonus points if the word vanishes from Language A once B takes it, or from Language B once A takes it back.

There must be a lot of these French -> English -> French. Right now, all I can think of is boeuf/beef/rosbif.

Yes, I’m sure Google or Wikipedia could find me a list of thousands of the things. Asking you lot is more fun.

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