List of English words of Germanic origin not preserved in German

The English language includes several hundred words of Germanic origin not preserved in German, below is a list of such words.
Most of these words are derived directly from Anglo-Saxon, many other words are of Scandinavian origin or have been borrowed from their Germanic sources into English via other languages. Some of the words in this list have never been part of the German vocabulary, but most of them have. This list includes lexems, which have no direct or no close cognates in modern standard German. However, some of the words in this list have (very) distant cognates in German and other ones have cognates in German dialects or proper names. In addition, several of the words in this list have be (re-)introduced to the German vocabulary as English loans during the last decades, e.g. Body, fair, Farm, Film, Flirt, Fun, Look, Meeting, Queen, Sale (cf. sell) and Schock (cf. shock).
A
*adze
*ale
*amaze
*awe
B
*bagel
*beacon
*bear (verb)
*bide
*boar
*body
*brain
*breathe
*bright
*broom
*buy
C
*call
*care
*cast
*child
*cod
*cunt
*cut
D
*dare
*delve
*die
*dim
*dare
*dive
*dog
*doom
*dusk
*dwell
E
*earl
*eave
*eke
*eld
*else
*ever
*every
F
*fain
*fair
*fake
*farm
*fax
*faze
*few
*film
*flab
*flap
*flint
*flirt
*float
*foster
*Wikt:frame
*fun
*furze
*fuzz
G
*gather
*gaze
*gleam
*gloom
*glove
*grasp
*grind
*grist
H
*ham
*heel
*hike
*hither
*hoot
I
*ilk
*ill
J
*jowl
*jump
K
*key
*kidney (1st component)
*kin
*knit
*know
L
*lea
*leak
*leach
*leer
*less
*limb
*listen
*little
*lock
*look
M
*mattock
*meadow
*meet
*mire
*mist
*mourn
*mug
N
*nap
*neat (noun)
*noll
O
*oar
P
Q
*quake
*queen
*quench
*quern
R
*raise
*rather
*roof
*rook
*roost
*root (verb)
*row (verb)
S
*scare
*sell
*shock
*skin
*sky
*some
*stud ("group of horses")
T
*tail
*take
*theft
*threap
*threshold
*time
*towel
*tree
U
V
W
*war
*weasand
*weird
*well (noun)
*wet
*wheel
*worse
*worst
*wrong
*wyrd
X
Y
*yean
*yeast
*yelp
*yex
Z

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu