German loan words
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
There are a number of German terms for which there are no useful English equivalents. Because of their usefulness, these terms -- called loan words -- have entered the English lexicon.
This list (with nearest synonyms) includes:
- Achtung (attention)
- Aha-Erlebnis/Aha-Effekt (autodidactic discovery)
- Angst (a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity)
- Ansatz (one of the most used German loan words in the English-speaking world of science)
- Blitz ("lightning", came to be known as a metaphor for "extremely fast"/a explicably fast maneuver or movement.)
- Blitzkrieg (lightning war)
- Bratwurst (sausage)
- Doppelgänger (a ghostly counterpart of a living person)
- Drachenfutter (a gift brought home by a carousing husband to placate his wife, literally "dragon fodder")
- Ersatz (being a usually artificial and inferior substitute or imitation)
- Festschrift (a volume of writings by different authors presented as a tribute or memorial especially to a scholar)
- Gastarbeiter (guest worker)
- Gemütlich (warmth,agreeably pleasant), Gemütlichkeit (cordiality, friendliness)
- Gesamtkunstwerk (comprehensive work)
- Gestalt (epiphany, a structure, configuration, or pattern of physical, biological, or psychological phenomena so integrated as to constitute a functional unit with properties not derivable by summation of its parts)
- Götterdämmerung (literally - twilight of the gods; a collapse (as of a society or regime) marked by catastrophic violence and disorder)
- Hausfrau (housewife)
- Kaffeeklatsch (an informal social gathering for coffee and conversation)
- Kindergarten (nursery, lit. Garden of children -- This is probably the best known German word in the whole wide world.)
- Lebensraum (space required for life, growth, or activity, compare to Elbow room, Living-room')
- Loanword (a word taken into another language; ironically a Loanword, a calque of the German Lehnwort)
- Leitmotiv (a dominant recurring theme)
- Lust (extreme wanting, desire; from Old English term, meaning "desire"; ultimately from a Germanic word which came from High German lust "wish, desire". In German, the word lust denotes simply "desire")
- Meister ((master/teacher, Ex. Mr.; compare to Maestro) -- See also the words from Todesfuge: "Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland" by Paul Celan)
- Mittelschmerz (middle pain, used to refer to ovulation pain)
- Ostalgie (nostalgia for the former Eastern Bloc)
- Ohrwurm (a catchy tune that gets stuck in one's head)
- Poltergeist (a noisy usually mischievous ghost held to be responsible for unexplained noises)
- Putsch (revolution; a secretly plotted and suddenly executed attempt to overthrow a government)
- Realpolitik (politics based on practical and material factors rather than on theoretical or ethical objectives)
- Sauerkraut (sour cabbage)
- Schadenfreude (sadism, enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others)
- Sturm und Drang (lit. "storm and stress"; turmoil)
- Über (ultra, "very"), Übermensch (superman/superhuman)
- Überfremdung claim that some aspect of a culture has been tooheavily penetrated by foreign influence
- Ursprache (proto-language)
- Waldsterben (deforestation)
- Wanderlust (strong longing for or impulse toward wandering)
- Weltanschauung (a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint)
- Weltschmerz (lit. "world-pain"; mental depression or apathy caused by comparison of the actual state of the world with an ideal state)
- Wirtschaftswunder (designates the upturn experienced in the West German and Austrian economies after the Second World War)
- Wunderkind (a child prodigy)
- Zeitgeist ("spirit of the times"; actually a German calque originating from a Shakespeare translation)
- See also
- List of German expressions in English
- German placename etymology
- German name
- List of German given names
- List of Spanish words of Germanic origin
- List of Portuguese words of Germanic origin
- List of English words of Afrikaans origin
- List of English words of Czech origin
- List of English words of Dutch origin
- List of English words of Finnish origin
- List of English words of French origin
- List of English words of Hungarian origin
- List of English words of Norwegian origin
- List of English words of Old Norse origin
- List of English words of Scots origin
- List of English words of Swedish origin
- List of English words of Yiddish origin
- List of Spanish words of Celtic origin
- List of Spanish words of French origin
- List of Spanish words of Indo-Aryan origin
- List of Spanish words of Iranian origin
- List of Spanish words of Turkic origin
- List of Spanish words of Basque/Iberian origin
- List of Spanish words of Italic origin
- List of Spanish words of Semitic origin
- List of Spanish words of uncertain origin
- List of Spanish words of various origins
- List of generic forms in British place names
- Etymological list of counties of the United Kingdom
- Etymological list of counties of Romania
- List of country name etymologies
- List of subnational name etymologies
- List of river name etymologies
- List of words derived from toponyms
- Chemical elements named after people
- Chemical elements named after places
- List of English words of Etruscan origin
- List of English words of Hawaiian origin
- List of English words of Hebrew origin
- List of English words of Indian origin
- List of English words of Irish origin
- List of English words of Italian origin
- List of English words of Latin origin
- List of Latin words with English derivatives
- List of English words of Native American origin
- List of English words of Persian origin
- List of English words of Polish origin
- List of English words of Portuguese origin
- List of English words of Quechuan origin
- List of English words of Romanian origin
- List of English words of Russian origin
- List of English words of Serbo-Croatian origin
- List of English words of Slovak origin
- List of English words of Scottish Gaelic origin
- List of English words of Spanish origin
- List of English words of Tagalog origin
- List of English words of Turkic origin
- List of English words of Ukrainian origin
- List of English words of Welsh origin