Leute
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German
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle High German liute, from Old High German liuti, also liudi, from Proto-West Germanic *liud(i), from Proto-Germanic *liudīz (“people”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁lewdʰ- (“man, people”).
Compare Dutch lieden, luden, luiden, Old Norse lýðir (“people”) (whence Icelandic lýður), Old Saxon liudi, Old English lēode (“people”), English lede (“people”), Gothic *𐌻𐌹𐌿𐌸𐍃 (*liuþs), Polish ludzie, Serbo-Croatian ljȗdi, Slovene ljudjẹ̑, Bulgarian люде (ljude), Russian люди (ljudi). More at leod and Proto-Slavic *ľudьje.
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]Leute pl (plural only, diminutive Leutchen n or Leutlein n)
- people (several individual persons, a group of people in general, esp. of one kind or another), folk (folks), peeps (slang), guys (boys and/or girls)
- 1754, Der Königl. Akademie der Wissenschaften in Paris Physische Abhandlungen, Zehnter Theil, welcher die Jahre 1733 und 1734 in sich hält. Aus dem Französischen übersetzt von Wolf Balth. Adolph von Steinwehr, Breslau, page 598:
- Gleich den andern Tag schicketen wir zween Leute mit der Post fort:
- Note: The work also has masculine zween Theile, zween Zoll, zween Beobachter, feminine zwo oder drey Linien, zwo neue Wahrheiten, neuter zwey Stücke, zwey kleine Glasfenster.
Usage notes
[edit]- A backformed singular Leut n (“person”) may be heard in colloquial speech. It is rare and usually humorous.
Declension
[edit]Declension of Leute [pl-only, masculine]
Noun
[edit]Leute
Further reading
[edit]- “Leute” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
- “Leute” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon
- “Leute” in Duden online
- Leute on the German Wikipedia.Wikipedia de
- Friedrich Kluge (1883) “Leute”, in John Francis Davis, transl., Etymological Dictionary of the German Language, published 1891
Categories:
- German terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- German terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *h₁lewdʰ-
- German terms inherited from Middle High German
- German terms derived from Middle High German
- German terms inherited from Old High German
- German terms derived from Old High German
- German terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic
- German terms derived from Proto-West Germanic
- German terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- German terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- German 2-syllable words
- German terms with IPA pronunciation
- German terms with audio pronunciation
- German terms with homophones
- German lemmas
- German nouns
- German pluralia tantum
- German terms with quotations
- German non-lemma forms
- German noun forms