1900s
German words first recorded in the 20th century
5 German words whose earliest known written record dates from the 20th century, earliest first. Words dated only to part of the century follow the ones with a year.
Auto
1904It is short for Automobil, borrowed from French automobile, and like the full word it follows a French model, auto. Kluge dates the short form to 1913, first as the first element of compounds, and…
Fan
1949It is borrowed from English fan (“enthusiastic supporter”), borrowed in the middle of the 20th century. The English word, which came to German from American usage, is a shortening of fanatic…
Datei
1950–1999It is from German Daten + -ei, formed on the model of Kartei “card index”. Wahrig calls it a loan formation after the card-index word, influenced by the word for data. The base noun is the plural of…
Internet
1950–1999It is borrowed from English internet, recorded in German from the second half of the 20th century. The sources explain the English word differently. Duden and the Duden dictionary analyse it as a…
Euro
1995It is a short form of Europa and europäisch, an artificial name rather than a regular clipping. From about 1960 joint projects of several European states began to use the short form as the first…