List of English words of German origin

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 (and their nearest synonyms) includes:


 * Achtung (attention)
 * Aha-Erlebnis (synchronicity),
 * Angst (a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity)
 * 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)
 * 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)
 * Lebensraum (space required for life, growth, or activity, compare to Elbow room, ''Living-room')
 * Leitmotiv (a dominant recurring theme)
 * Lust (extreme wanting, desire; from Old English term, meaning "desire"; ultimately from a the 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))
 * Mittelschmerz (middle pain, used to refer to ovulation pain)
 * Ostalgie (nostalgia for the former Eastern Bloc)
 * 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)
 * 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")

List of German expressions in English
 * See also