“a gloomy, often neurotic feeling of generalized anxiety and depression” In German, this word denotes any kind of fear, but in English it is used to designate Click here to see a fun article from 2014 describing 10 German words that are or should be on this list.

Click here to see a great Tumblr post on “Untranslatable German Words” (written in July 2017, many years after I stopped updating this list), including some newer coinages like “verschlimmbessern” and “fremdschämen.”.Most of the words on this list enrich the English language, but some are just references to Nazi terminology. Words for which I have found such quotes are hyperlinked in the list below. Please do, however, use the Contact/Feedback link below to send (a) corrections, or (b) fun quotations illustrating the use of one of the words listed below in English. There is now an excellent Wikipedia article with a List of German expressions in English, so I will no longer be making additions to this page.

German Words that Express Concepts for which English Lacks Suitable Words

German words in english and in german