In linguistics, a calque ([kælk]) or loan translation (itself a calque of German Lehnübersetzung) consists of the borrowing of a phrase from one language into another, in the process of which individual words native to the borrowing language semantically match the individual words in the source language.
The word is also used as a verb: to calque means to loan translate from another language to create a new lexeme in the target language.
English commonplace calques Latin locus commūnis (referring to a generally applicable literary passage), which itself is a calque of Greek koinos topos
English devil's advocate calques Latin advocātus diabolī, referring to an official appointed to present arguments against a proposed canonization or beatification in the Catholic Church
By contrast, a calque or loantranslation is a related process whereby it is the meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself.
Idiomatic expressions and phrases, sometimes translated word-for-word, can be borrowed, usually from a language that has "prestige" at the time.
Direct loans, expressions translated word-by-word, or even grammatical constructions and orthographical conventions from English are called anglicisms.
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