Loan words with more specific meanings after than before the borrowing

[Ares Land]

Oh, related to the question about deep dishes:

• EN mug → mug 'coffee mug'

And definitely not a beer mug; that's 'une chope'

[Ares Land]

Still from the same conversation:

• German Becher, ~mug → French bécher, 'laboratory beaker'.

[Travis B.]

Still from the same conversation:

• German Becher, ~mug → French bécher, 'laboratory beaker'.

Interestingly enough, English beaker is cognate with German Becher (probably borrowed from Middle Dutch beker).

[Vijay]

What makes you think it's borrowed from Dutch?

Shampoo comes from a Hindi word that just means 'massage!'.

[Travis B.]

What makes you think it's borrowed from Dutch?

Well Etymonline says that it's borrowed in the mid-14th century from Middle Dutch beker or ON bikarr, which are from Medieval Latin bicarium (cf. OS bikeri, OHG behhari, StG. Becher), but the date doesn't seem right for a borrowing from ON, and the vowel's wrong too.

[Vijay]

What makes you think it's borrowed from Dutch?

Well Etymonline says that it's borrowed in the mid-14th century from Middle Dutch beker or ON bikarr, which are from Medieval Latin bicarium (cf. OS bikeri, OHG behhari, StG. Becher), but the date doesn't seem right for a borrowing from ON, and the vowel's wrong too.

The vowel being different would be nothing surprising at all for a borrowing. Maybe they meant it was either borrowed in the mid-14th century from Middle Dutch or borrowed earlier from Old Norse (i.e. mid-14th century was only meant to be applied to Middle Dutch).

[Talskubilos]

Hispano-Arabic qutˁún 'cotton' was borrowed into Western Basque kutun (B, G, HN) 'pincushion; amulet', but in northern varieties the meaning drifted to 'letter, writing' and even 'book' due to cotton being the raw material from which paper was made.

[Ryusenshi]

An interesing one from LGBT slang.

• FR femme "woman" (also "wife") → EN femme "feminine lesbian or queer woman"

The word also lost its irregular pronunciation, from /fam/ to /fɛm/.

[Linguoboy]

Similarly, Spanish macho "male" > English macho "exaggeratedly masculine".

[Ryusenshi]

FR gauche "clumsy" (also "left" as opposed to "right") → EN gauche "socially clumsy, lacking in etiquette"
FR boutique "shop" → EN boutique "upmarket, luxury shop"

Two connected ones:
FR grappe "bunch, cluster" → EN grape "fruit of the vine" (since it grows in clusters)
FR raisin "grape" → EN raisin "dried grape"

[Moose-tache]

I recently learned that the "nip" in "catnip" does in fact mean... catnip.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Today I learnt that nip is etymologically identical to nepeta; I had always thought it was a coincidence. I had always assumed it was because cats "nip" (connected to "nibble", maybe) at it.

[Qwynegold]

French jour has been borrowed into Swedish with the meaning "on call duty".

[Imralu]

German uses Shitstorm only for a shitstorm of negative comments in social media or in the comments on a website.

[Qwynegold]

German uses Shitstorm only for a shitstorm of negative comments in social media or in the comments on a website.

Does it have any other meaning in English?

[fusijui]

German uses Shitstorm only for a shitstorm of negative comments in social media or in the comments on a website.

Does it have any other meaning in English?

To me it's much more broadly applicable, not limited to online fracas (fracases?). Certainly when I learned it in the '80s, that wasn't even an option. A term I'm fond of, and am glad to hear has been borrowed by other languages

[Travis B.]

German uses Shitstorm only for a shitstorm of negative comments in social media or in the comments on a website.

Does it have any other meaning in English?

To me it's much more broadly applicable, not limited to online fracas (fracases?). Certainly when I learned it in the '80s, that wasn't even an option. A term I'm fond of, and am glad to hear has been borrowed by other languages

Same thought here - it is more widely applicable to a variety of clusterfucks than just online ones.

[Qwynegold]

To me it's much more broadly applicable, not limited to online fracas (fracases?). Certainly when I learned it in the '80s, that wasn't even an option. A term I'm fond of, and am glad to hear has been borrowed by other languages

Same thought here - it is more widely applicable to a variety of clusterfucks than just online ones.

Oh huh, I wasn't aware.

Here's another loan word: In Swedish kick is used in the sense of "getting a kick out of something" or to mean "a jolt".

[Linguoboy]

German Kick is similar. Besides meaning "thrill", it can also mean a literal kick, but only in limited contexts (such as football or martial arts).

[Moose-tache]

"hit," as in "popular" or "successful," is another English term that has cought on in languages that have not borrowed other meanings of the word. Gosh, people must thing English is just a really violent language.