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Main meanings of german in English

: german1German2

german1

Pronunciation /ˈdʒəːmən/

See synonyms for german

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adjective

archaic

Origin

Middle English from Old French germain, from Latin germanus ‘genuine, of the same parents’.

Main meanings of German in English

: german1German2

German2

Pronunciation /ˈdʒəːmən/

See synonyms for German

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noun

  • 1A native or inhabitant of Germany, or a person of German descent.

    ‘First taken by the British, it was lost next day to the Germans by the Americans who failed to retake it.’
    • ‘That experience taught him how hard it will be to sell our expertise to the Swiss and Germans.’
    • ‘We have got a lot to learn from the Americans, from the French, from the Germans in that respect.’
    • ‘Its brilliance was to permit the rearming of Germans but not the rearmament of Germany.’
    • ‘Put another way, the French and Germans have found a way of making the market serve everyone.’
    • ‘The Germans excelled at fast warfare and French and British forces could not keep up.’
    • ‘Both the French and Germans wished to control it as it gave an army height in that area.’
    • ‘The Dutch will go through with victory against Latvia only if the Germans do not beat the Czechs.’
    • ‘Likewise, the Russians could not let the Germans get hold of the oil fields in the Caucasus.’
    • ‘Ossies, as East Germans came to be called, felt they had every right to be disappointed.’
    • ‘Dieppe was very well defended by the Germans who realised its value as a port.’
    • ‘The Germans may have had a fine submarine on paper but producing it in numbers was a different matter.’
    • ‘The new design was quickly latched onto by the Germans and a naval race began.’
    • ‘Flu had a terrible impact on Germans as the people had little bodily strength to fight the illness.’
    • ‘They captured many of the records that the Germans left behind in their hurried departure.’
    • ‘Despite such overwhelming numbers, the Germans did not do well at the start of the battle.’
    • ‘His plot to deceive the Germans was immortalised in this film.’
    • ‘Germany and Europe will be waiting to see how these two most different of Germans gel on the big stage.’
    • ‘Sweden are really going for this, which will be making the Germans feel most unpopular.’
    • ‘It was the sort of thing the Germans supply for first aid at spectacular autobahn accidents.’

  • 2mass noun A West Germanic language used in Germany, Austria, and parts of Switzerland, and by communities in the US and elsewhere. It is spoken by some 100 million people.

    See also High German, Low German

    ‘They speak a dialect of German called Pennsylvania Dutch at home.’
    • ‘The official language is German but spoken language is an Alemannic dialect.’
    • ‘From what I can tell, somebody went through and very literally translated words from German to English for the North American release.’
    • ‘More and more jobs being advertised have a requirement that the applicant can speak German or another European language.’
    • ‘Nearly ninety-nine percent of Austrians speak German, although at least four different dialects are in use.’
    • ‘His books have been translated into several languages, including German, Dutch, French, Hungarian and Japanese.’
    • ‘An Italian citizen by birth, his first language is German, and it is in Germany and Austria that his fame, some might say infamy, is greatest.’
    • ‘Learning from a family friend that he was the son of a German soldier came as a shock to the taxi driver, who does not speak a word of German.’
    • ‘Yes, the ship was overwhelmingly German and German-American, and during bingo sessions I learned to count in German.’
    • ‘I was 30 years old, and I performed it in German, as was the practice at the time.’
    • ‘I took 2 years of high school German and more in college, but don't really feel educated enough in the language to have an opinion.’
    • ‘For those who do not read German everything in this chapter will be new.’
    • ‘She quickly explained that they were studying German on an exchange program.’
    • ‘If you want to experience Wagner's Ring, you should see a full orchestral production, in German, in Bayreuth if you can afford it.’
    • ‘The tallest of the officers asked me something in German.’
    • ‘Nouns derived from a place name in German, used in this kind of sentence, don't normally take the indefinite article ein.’
    • ‘Pablo stresses that he's also trying to learn German so he can talk to yet another group of potential customers.’
    • ‘I don't know enough German to have figured out the whole story, but I guessed it was something along those lines.’
    • ‘So, that's how I started studying German, which led to my love of language and literature.’
    • ‘I only wish I could read German, so I could figure out what they're saying.’

adjective

  • Relating to Germany, its people, or their language.

    ‘As for all the phenomena (to use the language of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant), they are no more deep than our own minds.’
    • ‘A traditional old colony church service in the German language begins at 11 a.m.’
    • ‘I met an exchange student who was studying for a languages degree at a German university.’
    • ‘The German language has a very particular word for the process of coming to terms with the past.’
    • ‘Elementary German language school enrollments reached their zenith between 1880 and 1900.’
    • ‘In Lafont's account, the German tradition believes that language constitutes thought.’
    • ‘He was fluent in the language, read German books as a matter of course, and had lived there and written about its politics.’
    • ‘Imagine a German citizen coming to Russia with no language, no concept of the native culture, with every detail he encounters feeling to him completely foreign.’
    • ‘In the first half of 19th century the German missionaries undertook a renaissance of the language.’
    • ‘I stare at the wall-mounted television, which is depicting some German people dancing to folk music.’
    • ‘A poem I had to memorize in my freshman German class danced through my head.’
    • ‘In 1147 a contingent of German ships assembled at Cologne and sailed to Dartmouth to join an English army.’
    • ‘Two of the medieval popes considered German were actually from places in what are today France and the Netherlands.’
    • ‘My grandfather was Nordic German and my grandmother was in the dark.’
    • ‘They acquire old broadcasts of old East German programs that Alex plays on a hidden VCR.’
    • ‘For someone like me who is as much German as American, this is profoundly depressing.’
    • ‘This is one reason why taxes are so high on German and other European wage earners.’
    • ‘More than 200,000 German troops participated in the offensive.’
    • ‘When Portugal and Spain joined in the 1980s, their wages were roughly half west German levels.’
    • ‘We wonder what about them is unique, what if anything specifically German.’

Origin

From Latin Germanus, used to designate related peoples of central and northern Europe, a name perhaps given by Celts to their neighbours; compare with Old Irish gair ‘neighbour’.