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Many words in the English vocabulary are of French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest, before the language settled into what became Modern English. English words of French origin, such as art, competition, force, money, and table are pronounced ...
Generally, words coming from French often retain a higher register than words of Old English origin, and they are considered by some to be more posh, elaborate, sophisticated, or pretentious. However, there are exceptions: weep , groom and stone (from Old English) occupy a slightly higher register than cry , brush and rock (from French).
English words of French origin should be distinguished from French words and expressions in English. Although French is mostly derived from Latin, important other word sources are Gaulish and some Germanic languages, especially Old Frankish. Since English is of Germanic origin, words that have entered English from French borrowings of Germanic ...
The word "stationnement" is the French word, but in France they replace many words by the English equivalent when it is shorter. frasil fragile ice glace fragile huard (huart) loon Plongeon Huard: A type of bird typically found in lakes and ponds. In Canada, this bird is found on one dollar coins and is alternatively used to designate one ...
Words with specific American meanings that have different meanings in British English and/or additional meanings common to both dialects (e.g., pants, crib) are to be found at List of words having different meanings in British and American English. When such words are herein used or referenced, they are marked with the flag [DM] (different ...
Poster for the Norwegian magazine Urd by Andreas Bloch and Olaf Krohn. Wyrd is a concept in Anglo-Saxon culture roughly corresponding to fate or personal destiny. The word is ancestral to Modern English weird, whose meaning has drifted towards an adjectival use with a more general sense of "supernatural" or "uncanny", or simply "unexpected".
WordReference is an online translation dictionary for, among others, the language pairs English–French, English–Italian, English–Spanish, French–Spanish, Spanish–Portuguese and English–Portuguese. WordReference formerly had Oxford Unabridged and Concise dictionaries available for a subscription.
Specifically, "nation" reflects the softening of t before io in late Latin and early French, [2] while "enough" reflects the softening of a terminal g in West Germanic languages. [3] In contrast, North Germanic languages such as Danish and Swedish retain a harder pronunciation in their corresponding words ( nok and nog ).