Vol. 09 · Loanwords ·South Asia ·1800s (religious), 1980s (business)
Mantra
from mantra
- Meaning
- A sacred sound or formula repeated in meditation; figuratively, a guiding slogan.
- Source word
- mantra
- Route into English
- Sanskrit *mantra* (instrument of thought) → Theosophical and yoga writing → English. The figurative sense ("the company mantra is...") is late 20th-century business English, from the repetition aspect.
- Arrived
- 1800s (religious), 1980s (business)
From South Asia
Three centuries of British colonial contact — East India Company, Raj, military, domestic life — deposited a distinct Hindi/Urdu/Bengali/Sanskrit layer in everyday English.
English borrows.
Browse the full loanword atlas or explore another source language.