Word origins

• hang gliderAn unpowered aircraft resembling a large kite from which a rider is suspended in a harness.
• health fundA not-for-profit or a public health insurance company, usually found in health care systems in Central Europe, such as Germany.
• High AlemannicRelating to the High Alemannic dialects.
• higher criticismSynonym of historical criticism (“study of received texts, especially the Bible, as historical sources”).
• High GermanA native or inhabitant of the southern highlands of Germany; a High German speaker.
• High PrussianThe East Central German dialect formerly spoken in much of East Prussia.
• historical materialismA methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, looking for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans collectively produce the necessities of life.
• Hitler YouthThe youth organization of the Nazi Party.
• hoe-farmingPrimitive forms of agriculture defined by the absence of the plough.
• Holy Roman EmpireA former polity and medieval empire forming a loose conglomeration of largely independent mostly Germanic entities in Central Europe from at least 962 C.E. until 1806.
• how goes itAn informal greeting roughly equivalent to how are you.
• hunger stoneA stone, either naturally exposed or intentionally embedded in a river during a drought, which is dated and often inscribed to mark the water level as a warning to future generations that they may face famine if the water reaches that low level again. Such stones are common in Central Europe.
• ice ageA period of long-term reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence of major polar ice sheets that reach the ocean and calve icebergs.
• ice wineA sweet dessert wine made from grapes that are harvested after they have naturally frozen on the vine.
• I-hoodThe state of one's own self or identity; one's conscious personality.
• imperial-royalPertaining to the central government of Austria-Hungary.
• inferiority complexA sense of inferiority; the feeling that one is inferior to others in certain aspects.
• inner emigrationThe retreat to one's private life in the face of an oppressive state, instead of overt opposition or emigration to another country.
• intelligence quotientA score derived from one of several different standardized tests attempting to measure a person's intelligence relative to that of the general population, with the average usually calibrated to a number around 100.
• iron curtainA barrier made of iron in a theatre, lowered between the stage and the auditorium for fire safety or to prevent communication.
• Jamaica coalitionA German governing coalition among the parties of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Free Democratic Party (FDP), and the Greens.
• Jena glassA type of fine-quality borosilicate glass with high resistance to shock and heat, used in science, technology, and tableware.
• Jew-hateAntisemitism, a hatred of Jews.
• Jew-hatredAntisemitism, a hatred of Jews.
• journeyman's pieceA work that someone produces in order to prove that they have completed their apprenticeship in a craft.
• joy divisionA Nazi concentration camp brothel and its battalion of conscripted sex slaves.
• kaiser rollA typically crusty round bread roll supposedly invented in Vienna, made from flour, barm, malt, water, and salt, and whose characteristic feature is a five-spoked propeller- or pinwheel-like star on its obverse.
• Kaiser Wilhelm II LandPart of Antarctica, lying between Cape Penck at 87° 43'E and Cape Filchner at 91° 54'E.
• key moneyA payment required by a landlord or agent before accessing rented property.
• Klein bottleThe closed manifold obtained by identifying the boundary components of the annulus so that the resultant surface is nonorientable.
• knocking spiritA poltergeist.
• Krems whiteSynonym of French white (“an especially pure form of white lead, particularly as used in painting”).
• Kris Kringle MartSynonym of Christkindlmarkt (“a Christmas market”).
• labour powerThe capacity to do work (as opposed to labour, the physical act of working) which becomes a commodity under capitalism.
• lager-beerlager
• lamp floraSynonym of lampenflora.
• land underComplete flooding of a North Sea Hallig during a storm tide.
• language areaA geographical area where some language is commonly spoken.
• language gameA set of rules governing how participants respond to utterings.
• language islandAn enclave where a language is physically isolated from similar languages.
• late antiquityThe period of Mediterranean and Eurasian history from around the 3rd to the 7th centuries CE, marked especially by the transition from the Roman and Persian Empires to the Middle Ages and the Islamic and Byzantine civilizations.
• late capitalismThe most recent or current form of capitalism, especially as characterized by monopoly, globalization, exploitation, and excess.
• lightlandSynonym of Akhet (the region in the sky in which the sun tarries just before it rises or after it sets)
• lightning warSynonym of blitzkrieg.
• Little MasterAny of a group of German printmakers who produced finely detailed miniature prints in the first half of the 16th century.
• liver sausageSpreadable sausage made with liver.
• loan meaningA meaning that has been borrowed from a word in another language, through a process of semantic loan.
• loan translationSynonym of calque.
• loanwordA word directly taken into one language from another one.
• long march through the institutionsThe strategy of reforming society by becoming part of the institutions that control it.
• love-hateOf a relationship: involving feelings of both love and hate, often simultaneously.
• Lower BavariaAn administrative region of Bavaria. Seat: Landshut.
• lower criticismSynonym of textual criticism (“scientific reconstruction of original historical texts”).
• Lower FranconiaAn administrative region of Bavaria. Seat: Würzburg.
• Lower SaxonyA state of Germany, in existence since 1946.
• Low PrussianA dialect of East Low German that developed in Prussia (West Prussia, Danzig and parts of East Prussia), influenced to some extent by Dutch as well as Baltic and Slavic languages, after 1945 spoken among the expellee community in Germany, now all but extinct, except in the form of its daughter dialect of Plautdietsch.
• machine pistolA lightweight submachine gun, usually capable of being fired with one hand (but sometimes with a second grip at the front of the barrel and then fired like a rifle).
• magic bulletA simple remedy for a difficult or complex problem, especially a cure for a disease.
• magic realismA literary style or genre that combines naturalistic details and narrative with surreal or dreamlike elements.
• marbled crayfishProcambarus virginalis; an all-female species of crayfish that reproduces without sex.
• market citizenThe privileged status of anyone exploiting the specific individual rights of the European single market, having effectively a kind of depoliticized citizenship as a form of purely economic communitarization.
• market citizenshipThe state or status of being a market citizen.
• master of the woodsSynonym of waldmeister (“type of herb”).
• master raceA race of people who are superior to others.
• mastersingerA German lyric poet of the late Middle Ages.
• Middle FranconiaAn administrative region of Bavaria. Seat: Ansbach.
• Middle KingdomChina.
• miner's figureA wooden figure of a miner, usually bearing one or two candles, traditionally used as a Christmas decoration in the Ore Mountains of central Europe.
• mini-jobIn Germany, a part-time employment so low in volume that it legally avoids contributions to social security and taxation.
• modal particleA word class that indicates the mood of an utterance.
• mode of productionA combination of productive forces such as labour power and means of production, and social and technical relations of production such as property, power, laws and regulations, etc.
• momentary godA specific phenomenon, such as a lightning bolt, interpreted and experienced as a deity.
• morning-landThe Orient; the East.
• moss-folkA type of wood spirit that wears a covering of moss, lichen, and leaves.
• moss-maidenA young female of the moss-folk.
• moss-peoplemoss-folk
• moss-womanA female of the moss-folk.
• murky bassIntervals, each containing a low note followed by the pitch that is one octave higher, played on a keyboard, especially a harpsichord
• mustard gasA highly cytotoxic vesicant, C₄H₈Cl₂S, used in World War I that is known to cause skin burns, blisters, inflammation, edema, and potentially other respiratory effects.
• National BolshevismA marxist-leninist ultranationalist ideology primarily that combines strong elements of ultranationalism with economical communism.
• National SocialismThe ideology of the Nazi Party, including an authoritarian government, ethnic nationalism (including but not limited to Pan-Germanism) and adequate territory (Lebensraum), and economic cooperation between the state and capital.
• national socialistAn adherent of National Socialism; a Nazi.
• Neo-Middle EgyptianThe form of Middle Egyptian archaizingly used as a literary language after the vernacular language had changed into Late Egyptian, and later Demotic and Coptic.
• New EmpireSynonym of New Kingdom.
• New KingdomEgypt after the Second Intermediate Period but before the Third Intermediate Period, from the time of the overthrow of the Hyksos under Ahmose I at the start of the 18th Dynasty to its de facto disintegration at the end of the 20th Dynasty.
• New ObjectivityA German anti-expressionist artistic movement of the first half of the twentieth century that espoused direct, unadorned, matter-of-fact aesthetics.
• New SwabiaA region in the East of Antarctica first explored by a German expedition in 1939.
• Night of Broken GlassSynonym of Kristallnacht.
• night of the long knivesA purge, in which opponents of a regime or political party are killed or removed.
• night watchman stateGovernment that is limited to a bare minimum of functions, usually just military, police, and courts.
• Nosferatu spiderZoropsis spinimana, a relatively large hunting spider originally from southern Europe.
• oath-helperOne brought into court to swear to the truth and testify on oath on behalf of the accused, to clear them from suspicion of crime.
• office landscapeA form of open-plan office space promoted in the early 1950s, typically having irregular geometry and organic circulation patterns.
• Old KingdomEgypt from the start of the 3rd Dynasty to its disintegration into regional states at the end of the 6th Dynasty.
• Old Low GermanOld Saxon and Old Low Franconian combined
• orders are ordersUsed wryly when someone attempts to justify questionable actions by referring to rules, laws or orders from higher up.
• Ore MountainsA mountain range dividing Germany and the Czech Republic.
• orgastic potencyThe ability to experience full orgasmic gratification while engaging in the sexual act, a condition only possible for people without neuroses.
• overmorrowOn the day after tomorrow.
• overpersonSuperman.