A fun look at the meaning of "streichen" and its family with words like "streicheln", "der Strich", "unterstreichen" and how they all connect.
Words we'll learn:
streichen, durchstreichen, der Strich, der Aufstrich, der Abstrich, streicheln, der Streich,...
By: Emanuel|58 Comments| Updated:
January 16, 2026
Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day. And today, we’ll have a look at the meaning of
life
And the meaning of life is… uh… it’s … uhm… damn it! I just knew it yesterday evening! It was something with being or being something or something… why does it have to be so fleeting, damn it. So I guess our look at meaning of life is canceled.
Let’s instead look at how to say cancelled in German, which in essence is a look the meaning of
streichen
Streichen is related to the English word to strike, and by looks and sound, the resemblance is striking (*cue crickets). By meaning not so much though. There, it is much closer to the verb to stroke. Because the core idea of streichen is to move something somewhat gently across a surface. And there’s a quite a bit that you can do with that idea.
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Word of the Day – “streichen” - Key Questions
The core idea is moving something gently across a surface. That can mean to "stroke" in a directed way, to "paint" (not artsy painting but brushing a wall), or to "cancel" or cut something out. It also covers making a line with a pen.
"Streichen" has more of a directed movement and many uses, while "streicheln" is the soft caress. Here are two examples that show the difference: ·Thomas streichelt Maria den Rücken, während sie schläft. ·Thomas is stroking Maria's back while she is sleeping.
·Thomas hat Maria den Rücken gestrichen, während sie geschlafen hat. ·Thomas painted Maria's back while she was asleep.
You use "streichen" to mean cancel or cut something, often in formal or newsy contexts when a benefit or position is removed. It's common in headlines and reports. Example: ·Wegen der Finanzkrise hat die Firma 100 Stellen gestrichen. ·Because of the crisis the company cut 100 positions.
Watch out for the prefix family: "durchstreichen" means cross out, "unterstreichen" means underline or emphasize, "anstreichen" can mean mark or paint, "überstreichen" means paint over, and "verstreichen" can mean time passing. These are very useful and come up a lot.
"Der Strich" is the line you make with a pen. It appears in idioms like "einen Strich durch die Rechnung machen" to ruin plans, "unterm Strich" for the bottom line, "gegen den Strich gehen" to rub someone the wrong way, and "auf den Strich gehen" for prostituting oneself. You also get compounds like "Strichmännchen" (stick figure), "Strichliste" (tally), "Abstrich" (medical smear) and "Aufstrich" (spread).
I was thinking about the noun “Strich” today and the crazy collection of different meanings and not only do you have an article its a relatively recent one that i seem to have completely overlooked…
Mateo
Small English typo in one of the examples – the boss wants to cut/scrap free coffee. (rather than scrapes). If the boss wants to scrape up free coffee…I think it’s time to admit they have an addiction. :D
Ha, or maybe the company is a coffee shop and the manager is trying to save some money by scraping some coffee powder off the floor and puts it back into the machine :)
Liz
Hallo Emanuel…
Auf meinem Handy steht auf dem Bildschirm:
Zum Entsperren nach oben streichen.
Also eine der von dir genannten Definitionen für streichen:
“Nun, so wie man einen Pinsel über eine Oberfläche bewegt….” gilt dies für das Streichen der Hand oder des Fingerabdrucks, wenn es um Computerbildschirme geht oder vielleicht, wenn man seinen Sicherheitsausweis auf einer Schlüsselkarte streichen will?
Oh, du hast recht. Bei Touchscreens findet man streichen auch. Wahrscheinlich weil “wischen” zu unelegant klingt. Für eine Keycard würde ich “swipen” oder “durchziehen” sagen (wenn es einen Schlitz gibt) aber “streichen” ist nicht verboten.
Michael Trautner
The English words score and tally go together. Score is a mark in a stick to keep count by „twenties“, thus Abe Lincoln’s recognized words, „Four score and seven years ago“. Also research term „tally stick“, an old method of accounting.
Also: Rubs me the wrong way, against the grain, counter-intuitive.
Duaa
Nice article! and it made me realize how I really needed to add “Unterm Strich” to my vocabulary :D
But I have a question: is there a difference between “streichen” and “anstreichen” when it comes to painting?
Good question. If there’s a difference then it is SUPER subtle. I think “anstreichen” is more used for furniture and “streichen” for walls. And as soon as you mention the color, I’d only use “streichen”, but that might be just my personal way of speaking. Bottom line…no difference to worry about :)
For the strichliste, I would say, in American English: “Maria is keeping track of“ howmany times…. We have no word, that I know of, for this way of counting in sets if five, with four vertical lines and the fifth linestruck tvrough horizontally.
Anonymous
The way textbooks teach German “strikes me as odd”. Would be less abrasive than “rubs me the wrong way”
Amerikanerin
TimM – I’m so glad I dated “vor das Internet”, (hope that shouldn’t be dative) – I can’t keep track of abbreviations other than etc, ps., Mr and Ms.
Diese Information an sich wird dir einen Hinweis darauf geben, wie oft ich 29 geworden bin. Mein ältester Sohn wird nächstes Jahr älter als ich sein. Schönes Wochenende!
TimM
“D&D free” lmeans “drug and disease free”. And, I hasten to add, I had to Google “dating site acronyms” to find one other than “GSOH”.
I’m also Dungeons and Dragons free though, for what it’s worth.
Technically, “streichen über” can also be about painting. But the context makes it clear. Without a preposition, though, the verb doesn’t really express the idea of stroking anymore. No particular reason, the other meanings (to paint, to cancel) just pushed away the stroking.
As for your examples:
– “streicht sie”
This can be a bunch of things, ranging from smearing, spreading, painting to cancelling. But NOT caressing.
– “streicht über sie”
That can be painting as well as moving across “her/it”.
– Die Plane liegt auf dem Dach. Der Wind streicht über sie.
In this isolated form, it’s really unclear which “streichen” it is. Does that help a bit?
Nope, not really clear on the difference. Streicheln is the petting, like, at the petting zoo, or caressing, but the streichen/streichen über is still not clear. HELP! The “Plane” and “Wind” example really got me more confused
How about “making a stroking motion”, but a somewhat directed, long one ? The wind example was indeed a bit confusing, since it is somewhat metaphorical.
J Napier
“…rubs me the wrong way .” Is not bad, but carrying tha commas from the german construction is. Same words, no commas and you are okay.
Oops, yeah those commas made NO sense :D. No idea why I put them.
Amerikanerin
Also: ”Thomas STREICHT Maria über den Rücken,” bedeutet, ”Thomas STROKED Maria on the back.”
”Thomas STREICHELT Maria den Rücken” bedeutet, ”Thomas caressed (like petted an animal) Maria’s back,”
and, ”Thomas hat Maria den Rücken GESTRICHEN” beduetet that he PAINTED her back.
Have I understood correctly?
Ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob ich den Unterschied zwischen streichen und streicheln verstehe. I don’t know if I understand the diff bewtween ”streichen” and ”streicheln”.
AE speaker, living in Sweden (so my AE has become Swenglish), (For TimM: 162, 47 kg, alte Hexe, BTDT – (stands for, ”Been There, Done That”). Is D&D, Dungeons and Dragons?)
The translation should be: ”Thomas STROKES/CARESSES Maria’s back.” The thing is, I hope you don’t change the translation because it helps me learn to to Denke wie eine Deutshe. The missing tenses in German (or the extra ones in English) are difficult to install on my brain’s harddisk. Seeing these translations really hammers the way Germans build a sentence into my brain.
Everyone else already covered ”stickmen”, ”goes against my grain,” and ”doesn’t do it for me.” However, no one has mentioned the opposite of ”jdm gegen den Strich” must be ”mit dem Strich”? – Same in Swedish (medhårs) – you ”pet someone in the direction that their fur grows – mit dem Strich” if you are being nice to them or flattering them. Usually in the context of doing it unwillingly to get them to do something for you. Same auf Deutsch?
Tim
Wenn eine Firma Stellen streicht, bedeutet das dass sie niemand mehr einstellen wird, oder dass die aktuellen Arbeitnehmer(innen) entlassen werden?
“To cancel xxx positions” klingt mir mehr wie das erste Beispiel. Wenn es um Entlassungen geht, wuerde ich “the company is laying off xxx staff” sagen.
Ja, mein Fehler. Stellen streichen heißt “cut” positions that exist.
Peter
Achtung frisch gestrichen Caution wet paint …geht mir gegen den Strich Goes against the grain.
Hugh Warren
Better might be “doesn’t appeal to me”, or “doesn’t do it for me”, “doesn’t work for me”, or “doesn’t grab me” – younger readers probably have some more hip suggestions!
Agreed, as ~30-y.o. AE speaker, I would say “doesn’t work for me” or “doesn’t do it for me” in that context.
I think I primarily use “rubs me the wrong way” to describe a person, or possibly to describe a particular behavior of a person. For example, my brother-in-law just rubs me the wrong way. Or, the way he treated her rubbed me the wrong way.
Chiming in as a ~30 yo NZE speaker (170 cm, GSOH, D&D free, in case you were wondering). ‘Rubs me the wrong way’ didn’t seem out of place in that example (though a little old fashioned). It does definitely imply that something really aggravates you, though. I’d see it as a slightly less intense version of ”pisses me off’ (though that’s possibly thrown around more casually in Aus/NZ than other parts of the Anglosphere).
I’d probably be most likely to say that it “bugs me.”
Hugh Warren
You can say “… goes against the grain” – pretty much the same as “rubs me up the wrong way”, but doesn’t really quite fit in this context. More used about a person, or about an action/activity that you are required to do, somewhat against your will.
John Medway
The normal equivalent of “frisch gestrichen” is “WET PAINT”.
Hugh Warren
Thomas is painting his matchstick man ON Maria’s back – IN would be painful!
My first encounter with the word “Streich” was when I bought the parts, in a German edition, for the Beethoven string trios – Streich-Trios. The way we played them, they were not so much “stroke-trios” as “scrape-trios”.
Similarly “streichen” immediately has me thinking of die Streicher or die Streichinstrumente, words absorbed from German language titles and sleeve notes on vinyl records. CD’s, too, later. Thanks to Telefunken and others.
Audio Speed
Dark Mode
I was thinking about the noun “Strich” today and the crazy collection of different meanings and not only do you have an article its a relatively recent one that i seem to have completely overlooked…
Small English typo in one of the examples – the boss wants to cut/scrap free coffee. (rather than scrapes). If the boss wants to scrape up free coffee…I think it’s time to admit they have an addiction. :D
Unrelated, but “scrap” is a great word!
Ha, or maybe the company is a coffee shop and the manager is trying to save some money by scraping some coffee powder off the floor and puts it back into the machine :)
Hallo Emanuel…
Auf meinem Handy steht auf dem Bildschirm:
Zum Entsperren nach oben streichen.
Also eine der von dir genannten Definitionen für streichen:
“Nun, so wie man einen Pinsel über eine Oberfläche bewegt….” gilt dies für das Streichen der Hand oder des Fingerabdrucks, wenn es um Computerbildschirme geht oder vielleicht, wenn man seinen Sicherheitsausweis auf einer Schlüsselkarte streichen will?
Danke
Oh, du hast recht. Bei Touchscreens findet man streichen auch. Wahrscheinlich weil “wischen” zu unelegant klingt.
Für eine Keycard würde ich “swipen” oder “durchziehen” sagen (wenn es einen Schlitz gibt) aber “streichen” ist nicht verboten.
The English words score and tally go together. Score is a mark in a stick to keep count by „twenties“, thus Abe Lincoln’s recognized words, „Four score and seven years ago“. Also research term „tally stick“, an old method of accounting.
Also:
Rubs me the wrong way, against the grain, counter-intuitive.
Nice article! and it made me realize how I really needed to add “Unterm Strich” to my vocabulary :D
But I have a question: is there a difference between “streichen” and “anstreichen” when it comes to painting?
Good question. If there’s a difference then it is SUPER subtle. I think “anstreichen” is more used for furniture and “streichen” for walls. And as soon as you mention the color, I’d only use “streichen”, but that might be just my personal way of speaking. Bottom line…no difference to worry about :)
haha XDD Thank you!
Got it! Thanks! haha XDD
For the strichliste, I would say, in American English: “Maria is keeping track of“ howmany times…. We have no word, that I know of, for this way of counting in sets if five, with four vertical lines and the fifth linestruck tvrough horizontally.
The way textbooks teach German “strikes me as odd”. Would be less abrasive than “rubs me the wrong way”
TimM – I’m so glad I dated “vor das Internet”, (hope that shouldn’t be dative) – I can’t keep track of abbreviations other than etc, ps., Mr and Ms.
Diese Information an sich wird dir einen Hinweis darauf geben, wie oft ich 29 geworden bin. Mein ältester Sohn wird nächstes Jahr älter als ich sein. Schönes Wochenende!
“D&D free” lmeans “drug and disease free”. And, I hasten to add, I had to Google “dating site acronyms” to find one other than “GSOH”.
I’m also Dungeons and Dragons free though, for what it’s worth.
HAhaha… I was also thinking “dungeons and dragons”, nerd that I am :)
Agreed about stick figure and wet paint!!! (American here).
Can you expand on the difference between painting and stroking?
streichen sie über den Rücken
streichen sie den Rücken
How does the preposition change the meaning? Would
streichen sie
mean “painted on her”, and
streichen über sie
mean “stroked her”?
Technically, “streichen über” can also be about painting. But the context makes it clear.
Without a preposition, though, the verb doesn’t really express the idea of stroking anymore. No particular reason, the other meanings (to paint, to cancel) just pushed away the stroking.
As for your examples:
– “streicht sie”
This can be a bunch of things, ranging from smearing, spreading, painting to cancelling. But NOT caressing.
– “streicht über sie”
That can be painting as well as moving across “her/it”.
– Die Plane liegt auf dem Dach. Der Wind streicht über sie.
In this isolated form, it’s really unclear which “streichen” it is.
Does that help a bit?
Nope, not really clear on the difference. Streicheln is the petting, like, at the petting zoo, or caressing, but the streichen/streichen über is still not clear. HELP! The “Plane” and “Wind” example really got me more confused
How about “making a stroking motion”, but a somewhat directed, long one ? The wind example was indeed a bit confusing, since it is somewhat metaphorical.
“…rubs me the wrong way .” Is not bad, but carrying tha commas from the german construction is. Same words, no commas and you are okay.
Oops, yeah those commas made NO sense :D. No idea why I put them.
Also: ”Thomas STREICHT Maria über den Rücken,”
bedeutet, ”Thomas STROKED Maria on the back.”
”Thomas STREICHELT Maria den Rücken”
bedeutet, ”Thomas caressed (like petted an animal) Maria’s back,”
and, ”Thomas hat Maria den Rücken GESTRICHEN”
beduetet that he PAINTED her back.
Have I understood correctly?
Ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob ich den Unterschied zwischen streichen und streicheln verstehe. I don’t know if I understand the diff bewtween ”streichen” and ”streicheln”.
AE speaker, living in Sweden (so my AE has become Swenglish), (For TimM: 162, 47 kg, alte Hexe, BTDT – (stands for, ”Been There, Done That”). Is D&D, Dungeons and Dragons?)
The translation should be: ”Thomas STROKES/CARESSES Maria’s back.” The thing is, I hope you don’t change the translation because it helps me learn to to Denke wie eine Deutshe. The missing tenses in German (or the extra ones in English) are difficult to install on my brain’s harddisk. Seeing these translations really hammers the way Germans build a sentence into my brain.
Everyone else already covered ”stickmen”, ”goes against my grain,” and ”doesn’t do it for me.” However, no one has mentioned the opposite of ”jdm gegen den Strich” must be ”mit dem Strich”? – Same in Swedish (medhårs) – you ”pet someone in the direction that their fur grows – mit dem Strich” if you are being nice to them or flattering them. Usually in the context of doing it unwillingly to get them to do something for you. Same auf Deutsch?
Wenn eine Firma Stellen streicht, bedeutet das dass sie niemand mehr einstellen wird, oder dass die aktuellen Arbeitnehmer(innen) entlassen werden?
“To cancel xxx positions” klingt mir mehr wie das erste Beispiel. Wenn es um Entlassungen geht, wuerde ich “the company is laying off xxx staff” sagen.
Ja, mein Fehler. Stellen streichen heißt “cut” positions that exist.
Achtung frisch gestrichen Caution wet paint
…geht mir gegen den Strich Goes against the grain.
Better might be “doesn’t appeal to me”, or “doesn’t do it for me”, “doesn’t work for me”, or “doesn’t grab me” – younger readers probably have some more hip suggestions!
Agreed, as ~30-y.o. AE speaker, I would say “doesn’t work for me” or “doesn’t do it for me” in that context.
I think I primarily use “rubs me the wrong way” to describe a person, or possibly to describe a particular behavior of a person. For example, my brother-in-law just rubs me the wrong way. Or, the way he treated her rubbed me the wrong way.
Chiming in as a ~30 yo NZE speaker (170 cm, GSOH, D&D free, in case you were wondering). ‘Rubs me the wrong way’ didn’t seem out of place in that example (though a little old fashioned). It does definitely imply that something really aggravates you, though. I’d see it as a slightly less intense version of ”pisses me off’ (though that’s possibly thrown around more casually in Aus/NZ than other parts of the Anglosphere).
Hmm…. people rubbing people the wrong way… hmmm. No brain, do not go there :)!
Hmm… “gegen den Strich” feels a bit stronger than those. “mildly annoys me”, perhaps :)
I’d probably be most likely to say that it “bugs me.”
You can say “… goes against the grain” – pretty much the same as “rubs me up the wrong way”, but doesn’t really quite fit in this context. More used about a person, or about an action/activity that you are required to do, somewhat against your will.
The normal equivalent of “frisch gestrichen” is “WET PAINT”.
Thomas is painting his matchstick man ON Maria’s back – IN would be painful!
“Streichen” as euphemism for “tätowieren”?
Related to this, I think “stick figure” would be more idiomatic or at least more common for American speakers than “matchstick man.”
Haha.. no, the painting-“streichen” covers too much surface. You’d have to black out your entire back :)
Whops, indeed :)
My first encounter with the word “Streich” was when I bought the parts, in a German edition, for the Beethoven string trios – Streich-Trios. The way we played them, they were not so much “stroke-trios” as “scrape-trios”.
Similarly “streichen” immediately has me thinking of die Streicher or die Streichinstrumente, words absorbed from German language titles and sleeve notes on vinyl records. CD’s, too, later. Thanks to Telefunken and others.
Yeah, I totally forgot about those!! I learned flute, when I was a kid :)
Hahaha… nice!
Glad you brought up this context for Streich-, I totally forgot.
For completion a few more words:
– Streichorchester
– Streichinstrument
– die Streicher waren zu laut
Oh and then totally unrelated:
– streichzart
That one is used by marketing for butter. I’m not gonna say what it means :)