Words from German
28 words in Curio passed through German on their way into English.
About German
West Germanic branch of the Indo-European family · spoken today
Where
Western and Central Europe: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein → official or national status in Luxembourg, Belgium, South Tyrol and Namibia
When
Dates unknown
Speakers
105M
as of 2012
Speakers, Wikidata figure for 2012
Family path
- Proto-Indo-European
- Proto-Germanic
- Germanic
- Old High German
- German
- Middle FrenchNew LatinYiddishFrenchItalian
- English
Dashed: reconstructed, never written down
Where it came from
Modern German developed gradually from Old High German, which in turn grew out of Proto-Germanic during the Early Middle Ages. Its closest relatives are other West Germanic languages such as Dutch, English, Afrikaans, the Frisian languages and Scots. Most of its vocabulary comes from the ancient Germanic branch of Indo-European, with a smaller share drawn partly from Latin and Greek.
Source: Wikipedia
Family
German grew out of Old High German.
The words, A to Z
- aspirin
The world's most common painkiller started out as somebody's registered brand name.
- blockade
A word built to sound official the moment it landed in English.
- bunker
A word for underground safety once meant nothing more menacing than a seat with storage underneath.
- cartel
A word for cutthroat business alliances once meant a formal note passed between rivals before a duel.
- charisma
The magnetic pull some people have started out as a theological word for a gift freely given.
- coach
A humble Hungarian town lent its name to something that eventually carried students through exams and athletes through victories.
- delicatessen
A word that started out meaning fine food itself, then quietly became the name of the shop that sells it.
- frankfurter
This sausage carries a whole city's name in its bun.
- fuchsia
This vivid pink-purple color is named after a man, not a mood or a flower itself.
- glitch
A word that slipped into English the same way its meaning describes — a small skid that catches you off guard.
- graphite
The stuff in your pencil is named for the very act it performs.
- kaput
This word for 'broken beyond repair' actually started out as a losing hand of cards.
- lager
The beer named for the cellar it waited in, not the taste it became.
- larch
This tree's name traveled through at least four languages before it ever reached English soil.
- lesbian
An island's name became a word for love, thanks to one poet's verses about women.
- loafer
Someone who lingers a little too long doing nothing at all.
- marzipan
This sweet almond paste may owe its name to a faraway spice-trading port, not to any bakery at all.
- narcissism
There's a myth behind this word about someone who fell in love with a reflection and never looked away.
- nickel
This metal's name began as a swindler's joke about worthless ore that looked like silver.
- ohm
A unit of electrical resistance carries the surname of the man who worked out the law behind it.
- poodle
A dog named for its love of getting wet.
- sadism
This word carries the name of a real, notorious man inside it.
- saxophone
This instrument is literally named after the man who built it, with 'sound' tacked on the end.
- schnapps
A strong little sip that came to English straight from a German glass.
- telephone
A device named by joining 'far' and 'sound' — the plainest possible description of what it does.
- tuba
The deepest voice in the brass section once meant any kind of trumpet at all.
- waltz
A dance whose name is really just an old word for spinning around.
- zither
A flat, many-stringed instrument whose name has been plucked through four languages.