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german

adjectivenounnouncommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈd͡ʒɜː.mən//
  • United States//ˈd͡ʒɝ.mən//

Having the same mother and father; a full (brother or sister).

adjective

  1. 1

    Having the same mother and father; a full (brother or sister).

    brother-german

  2. 2

    Being born to one’s blood aunt or uncle, a first (cousin).

    cousin-german

    The doubtfull wordes whereof they scan and canvas to an fro. Which done, Prometheus sonne began by counsell wise and sage

  3. 3

    obsoleteClosely related, akin.

    After this Merlyn told vnto kynge Arthur of the prophecye / that there shold be a grete batail besyde Salysbury and Mordred his owne sone sholde be ageynste hym / Also he tolde hym that Basdemegus was his cosyn and germayn vnto kynge Vryence

    The phrase would bee more Germaine.

    Wert thou a Leopard, thou wert Germane to the Lion.

Etymology

From Old French germain, from Latin germānus, from germen (“seed, sprout, bud”). See also germane, a formal variant which has survived in specific senses. Not related to the proper noun German.

noun

  1. 1

    obsoleteA near relative.

    Which when his german saw, the stony feare / Ran to his hart, and all his sence dismayd […]

noun

  1. 1

    An elaborate round dance, often with a waltz movement.

    Through the years, though, the german was replaced by new and more popular dances, but in many instances the name stayed on.

  2. 2

    A social party at which the german is danced.

Etymology

From German (“of Germany”).

Forms

plural
germans
comparative
more german
superlative
most german
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).