Lexical Borrowing in the Light of Digital Resources: <i>Nyet</i> as a Case Study

Abstract The mere appearance of a foreign word does not necessarily mark the birth loanword, which requires documented usage by speech community. Relatively little research has been dedicated so far to “prenatal” stage that would investigate tentative infiltration foreign-derived words. Nyet , borrowing from Russian, is taken as case in point. Although its first recorded instance Oxford English Dictionary (OED3) dated 1928, it had increasingly recognized for several decades. This article focuses on textual attestations nyet discovered range digital resources, including British and American newspaper archives, discusses their usefulness potential antedatings OED3’s entry.