The francesismo (gallicismo) is a French word that has entered the vocabulary of another language, for instance Italian, and used frequently herein.
The word can be left in its original form (e.g. ‘routine’), and thus constitute a loanword, or may have bent the rules of the target language, appearing in that language and then declining, becoming a linguistic copy.
A special kind of francesimo is the return loan, that is when an Italian word was used in the French language and then declined according to the rules of this language. As such it is then accepted in spoken Italian, e.g. ‘sport’, which derives from ‘diporto’ and shares the same meaning hereof.
Not to confuse with francesismo is the false francesismo, a word that is only “apparently” French. Usually such words are used to disguise the discourse with a tone of elegance, e.g. ‘bluette’.
Different from the false francesismo is the so-called false friend, a word that is very similar in two languages and is frequently used, however with a slighly different meaning, e.g. ‘cyclette’ (=‘vélo d’appartement’).
Francesismi (or gallisisms) used in Italian
Compiled by Claus Skovbjerg, MA, stagiaire communicateur at TermCoord