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.
Definition of loan. 1  1a : money lent at interest took out a loan to pay for the new carb : something lent usually for the borrower's temporary use. 2  2a : the grant of temporary use Can I have the loan of your car?b : the temporary duty of a person transferred to another job for a limited time He had been on loan to the navy during the war.