noun, plural ferries. 1. a commercial service with terminals and boats for transporting persons, automobiles, etc., across a river or other comparatively small body of water. 2. a ferryboat.
Examples and related terms. A loanword is distinguished from a calque (loan translation), which is a word or phrase whose meaning or idiom is adopted from another language by translation into existing words or word-forming roots of the recipient language.
loan translation. n the adoption by one language of a phrase or compound word whose components are literal translations of the components of a corresponding phrase or compound in a foreign language. English ``superman'' from German ``Ãbermensch.'' (Also called) calque. machine translation.