English words from German
13 English words with German in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages.
dachshund
It is borrowed from German Dachshund, from German Dachs (“badger”) + Hund (“dog”), because the dogs were used to hunt badgers. German Dachs comes from Old High German dahs and is the source of…
dyslexia
It is borrowed from German Dyslexie (1883), a New Latin formation from Ancient Greek δυσ- (dus-, “bad, difficult”) and Ancient Greek λέξις (léxis, “word, speech”), from légein “to speak”, with the…
entropy
It is borrowed from German Entropie, coined in 1865 by the physicist Rudolf Clausius on the analogy of Energie, from Ancient Greek ἐν (en, “in”) and Ancient Greek τροπή (tropḗ, “a turning…
hinterland
It is borrowed from German Hinterland (“land behind”), from German hinter (“behind”) + Land (“land, country”). It is related to hinder and land.
kaput
It is borrowed from German kaputt (“destroyed, ruined”), from French capot, used of a player who had not won a single trick at piquet. The German word probably comes from the phrase capot machen, a…
kindergarten
It is borrowed from German Kindergarten (“children's garden”), from German Kinder (“children”) + Garten (“garden”). The German word was coined in 1840 by the educator Friedrich Fröbel for his method…
paraffin
It is borrowed from German Paraffin, coined about 1830 by the chemist Karl von Reichenbach from Latin parum (“too little”) and Latin affinis (“bordering on, related”), because the substance has…
poltergeist
borrowed from German Poltergeist (“noisy ghost”), from poltern “to make noise, knock, rattle” + Geist “ghost”. Poltern comes from Middle High German boldern; Etymonline traces it to a…
quark
Coined in 1964 by the American physicist Murray Gell-Mann, who told the OED in 1978 that he took it from the line “Three quarks for Muster Mark!” in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake (1939), though the…
sauerkraut
It is borrowed from German Sauerkraut (“sour cabbage”), from German sauer (“sour”) + Kraut (“vegetable, cabbage”). It is related to sour and kraut.
terminology
It is borrowed from German Terminologie, a hybrid coined by Christian Gottfried Schütz, professor at Jena, from Medieval Latin terminus (“word, expression”) and the Greek-derived element -logie…
vampire
borrowed from French vampire or borrowed from German Vampir, which first appeared in German in 1732 in an account of Hungarian vampires. The German word came from Slavic, possibly through Hungarian…
waltz
It is borrowed from German Walzer, from walzen “to roll, to dance”, from Old High German walzan (“to turn, roll”), from the Proto-Indo-European root *wel- “to turn, revolve”. Random House explains…