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Many words were borrowed from the German language from the sizable German population in Polish cities during medieval times. German words found in the Polish language are often connected with trade, the building industry, civic rights and city life. Some words were assimilated verbatim, for example handel and dach ; others are pronounced similarly, but differ in writing Schnur—sznur .

As a result, many Polish words come from Yiddish, spoken by the large Polish Jewish population that existed until the Holocaust. Borrowed Yiddish words include bachor , bajzel , belfer , ciuchy , cymes , geszeft , kitel , machlojka , mamona , manele , myszygene , pinda , plajta , rejwach , szmal , and trefny . Polish has, over the centuries, borrowed a number of words from other languages. When borrowing, pronunciation was adapted to Polish phonemes and spelling was altered to match Polish orthography.

Latin was known to a larger or smaller degree by most of the numerous szlachta in the 16th to 18th centuries . Apart from dozens of loanwords, its influence can also be seen in a number of verbatim Latin phrases in Polish literature . During the 12th and 13th centuries, Mongolian words were brought to the Polish language during wars with the armies of Genghis Khan and his descendants, e.g. dzida and szereg . Polish is a highly fusional language with relatively free word order, although the dominant arrangement is subject–verb–object . There are no articles, and subject pronouns are often dropped. There are certain clusters where a written consonant would not be pronounced.

In addition, Turkish and Tatar have exerted influence upon the vocabulary of war, names of oriental costumes etc. Russian borrowings began to make their way into Polish from the second half of the 19th century on. Thieves' slang includes such words as kimać or majcher of Greek origin, considered then unknown to the outside world. In 1518, the Polish king Sigismund I the Old married Bona Sforza, the niece of the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian, who introduced Italian cuisine to Poland, especially vegetables. Hence, words from Italian include pomidor from "pomodoro" , kalafior from "cavolfiore" , and pomarańcza, a portmanteau from Italian "pomo" plus "arancio" . A later word of Italian origin is autostrada (from Italian "autostrada", highway).

Most Polish speakers, however, do not consider palatalization of k, g, h or l as creating new sounds. The exceptions to the above rule are certain loanwords from Latin, Italian, French, Russian or English—where s before i is pronounced as s, e.g. sinus, sinologia, do re mi fa sol la si do, Saint-Simon i saint-simoniści, Sierioża, Siergiej, Singapur, singiel. Voiced consonant letters frequently come to represent voiceless sounds ; this occurs at the end of words and in certain clusters, due to the neutralization mentioned in the Phonology section above.

Of, relating to, or characteristic of Poland, its inhabitants, or their language. Colson Baker, better known as Machine Gun Kelly, just came out with his own nail polish line. The Jennifer's Body actress also showed her love for Kelly through nail accessories last month, when they were linked together by their pinky nails with a thin silver chain at the launch party for his own nail polish line, UN/DN LAQR.

In addition, word endings are liberally applied to almost any word to produce verbs, nouns, adjectives, as well as adding the appropriate endings for cases of nouns, adjectives, diminutives, double-diminutives, augmentatives, etc. Passive-type constructions can be made using the auxiliary być or zostać ("become") with the passive participle. There is also an impersonal polish construction where the active verb is used with no subject, but with the reflexive pronoun się present to indicate a general, unspecified subject (as in pije się wódkę "vodka is being drunk"—note that wódka appears in the accusative). A similar sentence type in the past tense uses the passive participle with the ending -o, as in widziano ludzi ("people were seen").

There are numerous words in both Polish and Yiddish languages which are near-identical due to the large Jewish minority that once inhabited Poland. One example is the fishing rod, ווענטקע , borrowed directly from Polish wędka. Depending on the historical period, borrowing has proceeded from various languages. Notable influences have been Latin (10th–18th centuries), Czech (10th and 14th–15th centuries), Italian (16th–17th centuries), French (17th–19th centuries), German (13–15th and 18th–20th centuries), Hungarian (15th–16th centuries) and Turkish .

Kashubian , often classified as a Polish dialect, is, historically, a separate language. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article .