Knowing relations between words can help understand their meanings and build a more connected vocabulary network. Here, you can explore parents and offspring and discover the whole family.
- shows how many children or parents the word has
- get the translations and a link
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Sources for Etymology:
- Check "neugierig" on DWDS.de
Biggest German Dictionary, great for etymology, usage frequency and collocations) - "neugierig" on Wiktionary (English version)
(For etymological connections across European languages. Not always accurate) - Etymonline.com - Origins of English words
My favorite source for the origin of English words.
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Hi Emanuel. I’m thinking about the negative tone this word can have – think “nosey” – which the english word curiosity doesn’t express. Is there a german word that expresses purely the positive side of curiosity – showing an interest in the world and and other people? A positive desire to learn and experience. Because I worry if i used “neugierigkeit” then its always got this nosey side of poking into other people privat lives.
Like if you hear “Er ist ein neugieriger Mensch” would you tend to think its more noseyness or curiousness? Or you’d need context.
Is there a better word to translate “curiosity” into german?
I feel like “neugierig” is pretty neutral if not a bit toward the positive side, even though it has “greed” in it.
The noun is “die Neugier” and that too sounds neutral to positive.
But maybe “die Wissbegierde” and “wissbegierig” are what you’re looking for. This sounds more intense than “neugierig” and I don’t think I have ever seen them in a negative context. But they do sound like “digging in the library” or “taking notes on a powerpoint” and they’re not common in daily speech.
ok thanks for the feedback : )