Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A feeling for language; an ear for the idiomatically correct or appropriate.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Alternative form of Sprachgefühl.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[German : Sprache, language (from Middle High German sprāche, from Old High German sprāhha) + Gefühl, feeling (from fühlen, to feel, from Middle High German vuelen, from Old High German vuolen; see pāl- in Indo-European roots).]

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Examples

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Comments

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  • lit. language feeling: "an ear for idiomatically appropriate language"

    http://wordsmith.org/words/sprachgefuhl.html

    December 2, 2006

  • Love how so many old-skool linguistic terms are from DEU.

    December 18, 2007

  • This is the most perfect word ever. Why does English not have more words like this?

    April 20, 2008

  • Also listed as sprachgefuhl.

    April 23, 2008

  • This raises the interesting issue, that words with an umlaut, like this one, automatically must get shafted in the frequency count, since their occurrences are likely to be split over two variants.

    April 23, 2008

  • Such a lovely word and meaning and I was going to second it as a Wordie flagship word but you've just identified a handicap, sionnach. So unsuchencumbered schadenfreudgeon then.

    April 23, 2008

  • Actually, they're likely to be split over three variants—the one with the umlaut intact (sprachgefühl), the one without (sprachgefuhl), and the entumlautet (that is to say, de-umlauted) version done ‘correctly’: sprachgefuehl. Quite an issue, then.

    November 13, 2008

  • Anything German and/or containing umlauts gets high marks in my book.

    November 13, 2008

  • Yöü dön't säÿ?

    November 13, 2008

  • They do seem to make words a bit more festive.

    November 13, 2008

  • Festive, or metal? I'm quite fond of the phenomenon that is the heavy metal umlaut. Especially when Germans pronounce the bandnames that have them.

    Röck and röll! Bëër! Sëx! Drügs! Dreämy düskywing!

    November 13, 2008

  • *pondering*

    Nöööö...stïll fëstïvë. ;-)

    November 13, 2008

  • �? ägrëë - möst fëstïvë ïndëëd!

    November 13, 2008

  • Nøw, nøw, døn't discriminåtë ågåinst øther Nørdic diåcriticåls!

    November 13, 2008

  • That's not just festive, frindley--that's a veritable carnival!

    November 14, 2008