Definition:

A word made up of elements (or morphemes) from different languages, such as television (Greek tele "far" plus Latin visio "seeing"). The process of creating such compounds is called hybridization. See also: barbarism.

Etymology:

From the Latin, "mongrel"

Examples and Observations:

• "English further abounds with Hybrid Compounds, i.e., words made up from different languages. Many of these are due to the use of prefixes and suffixes. Thus in a-round, the prefix is English but round is French; so also in be-cause, fore-front, out-cry, over-power, unable. In aim-less, the suffix is English, but aim is French; so also in duke-dom, false-hood, court-ship, dainti-ness, plenti-ful, fool-ish, fairy-like, trouble-some, genial-ly, &c. But besides these we have perfect compounds, such as these: beef-eater, i.e., eater of beef, where eater is English and beef is French; so also black-guard, life-guard, salt-cellar, smallage. On the other hand, French is followed by English in eyelet-hole, heir-loom, hobby-horse, kerb-stone, scape-goat."
  (Walter Skeat, Principles of English Etymology. Clarendon Press, 1892)

• "An initial wave of hybridization took place in the early Middle Ages between Anglo-Saxon and Danish that included, among many other items, that apparently most English of words, the. A second process began after the Norman Conquest in 1066, . . . when English mixed with French, and began to draw, both through French as well as directly, on Latin and Greek for a wide range of cultural and technical vocabulary. Indeed, rather than being an exception, such hybridization is a normal and even at times predictable process, and in the twentieth century a range of such flows of material has been commonplace."
  (Tom McArthur, "English World-Wide in the Twentieth Century," in The Oxford History of English, ed. by Lynda Mugglestone. Oxford Univ. Press, 2006)

Pronunciation: HI-brid

Also Known As: hybrid form, hybrid compound