Determinologisation is one of the actively growing tendencies in the modern Russian language development. However, the complex process of adapting a specialised lexeme to the general linguistic environment, its definition and criteria remain a controversial issue in modern linguistics, which determines the relevance of this study. The article aims to consider one way of transforming a term into a commonly used word. Based on the material of mass media texts of the 1990–2020s, the study traces the discursive migration path of the QR code term. The transformation of this term essential for modern society was complicated by the new loan word assimilation and consisted in a gradual transition from a term to a colloquial word. The research relied on distributional, source study, and corpus analysis in conjunction with comparative and statistical methods (using the "Integrum" database and the scientific electronic library elibrary.ru) when analysing the lexical material from the semantic, statistical, and functional perspectives to make reliable generalisations and obtain new conclusions. The article examines the process of adaptation to the Russian language environment the foreign language abbreviation, namely the first component of the word QR code, underwent. This adaptation is embodied in the functionally unrestricted variants k ’ yuar-kod/kuar-kod/kyuar-kod and in the colloquial variants kverkod/kver-kod/kiarkodkuar/k ’ yuar/k ’ yu-kod/kyuar/kyur-kod. Neutral variants are also analysed from the stand point of the principles of Russian orthography and norms. As one determinologisation stage, the study considers the process of semantic development of the neutral variants QR-kod/k ’ yuar-kod/kuar-kod/kyuar-kod, their derivational activity, and involvement in language game. The article also reveals extralinguistic factors that impacted on various stages of the QR code adaptation by the language environment. These include the approval of the QR code by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as a standard for mobile phones (2011) and the COVID-19 pandemic (2020).