2569: Greek Re-Borrowing 'Cinema' Dec 25, 2021

While English has a number of regional words for movie theater, including 'cinema', and this word has permeated many other languages. Originally from Greek κίνημα (kínima) meaning 'movement' and the same root as 'kinetic' led to the German 'Kino' (from 'Kinematograph') via the French 'cinéma(tographe)'. This was the later reborrowed into Greek σινεμά (sinemá) with that same meaning.

2230: Reborrowing Jan 22, 2021

Reborrowing is a process by which a word that is adopted into one language has a derivative that is borrowed back. A few examples are:

•'Anime' (English) from Japanese アニメ (anime) from the 'animation' (English)

•'Cookie' (Dutch) i.e. online information from English 'cookie' from 'koekje' (Dutch)

•Modern Hebrew תכלס [(tachles) 'directly'] from Yiddish תכלית [(tachlis) 'serious business'] from Hebrew תכלית [(tachlith) purpose]

•There is even double borrowing in the case of the English 'redingote' from French 'redingote' from English 'riding coat' from French 'cotte'.

These are usually doublets, that is to say a pair of words with identical origins and different meanings, but also included this would be borrowing calques, i.e. literal translations, such as

ready-to-wear → French prêt-à-porter (1951) → English prêt-à-porter (1957).