Hello everyone,
And welcome back to our German Word of the Day. Last time, we talked about the crucial German pre New Year greeting Guten Rutsch.
This time, we’ll explore the verb it is based on a bit further because today, we’ll take a look at
The Meaning of “rutschen”
And that of course means that we’ll also talk about the prefix versions like ausrutschen, abrutschen or rausrutschen a bit because they’re useful if you want to build a broader vocabulary base.
So if you’re ready, let’s slide right in.
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The Meaning of “rutschen”
The origins of the verb rutschen are not entirely certain, but it is possible that it’s at least partially inspired by the verb rücken.
Which has nothing to do with the noun der Rücken (the back), but instead is about sort of “inching something (or yourself) across a surface bit by bit”.
Think of pushing the fridge to the side a bit for instance, or you shifting over to the side to make room on the couch for your buddy. rücken is about this inch by inch moving while “scraping” across the surface.
I have a lesson on rücken, so I’ll link that below if you want to explore it further.
But yeah, rutschen might have started as just a more dynamic sounding version of rücken.
Like… you want to push your couch to the side a bit and then suddenly it just slides over a meter because you forgot you’re actually on a frozen lake in the middle of the magical forest.
“So rutschen means to slide?”, the squirrel asked.
“Yes, sliding across a surface”, I replied as I struggled to stop the couch from sliding further. “And it’s important to note that there’s a sort of vibe of accident in it.”
Or maybe “loss of grip or traction” is a better way to put it.
Anyway, let’s look at some examples
- Mein Handy ist aus der Tasche gerutscht.
- My phone slid out of my pocket.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Meine Hose rutscht.
- My pants aren’t staying up/are sagging.
(In the sense that they keep sliding and you’d need a belt)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Pass auf, der Boden ist rutschig.
- Watch out, the ground is slippery.
(glatt also means slippery, but it can also mean that a surface is smooth)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Das ist die steilste Wasserrutsche der Welt!”
“Äh… das ist einfach ein Wasserfall.” - “This is the steepest water-slide in the world.”
“Uhm… this is just a waterfall.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Rutsch mal ein Stück, ich will auch auf die Couch.” sagte das Eichhörnchen.
- “Slide over a bit, I want to be on the couch as well.”, the squirrel said.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
As you can see in the last example, it doesn’t ALWAYS have to include a “loss of grip”. The rutschen there is deliberate and controlled.
But it’s good to keep this aspect of the verb in mind because it helps understand why rutschen does not work for things like a sliding scale or sliding into the DMs of your favorite influencer. rutschen is too clumsy for that.
And the notion of loss of grip is also very strong in the prefix versions of rutschen, so let’s look at those next.
Ausrutschen and Abrutschen – Slip in German
ausrutschen and abrutschen both mean to slip. But they’re not the same.
ausrutschen basically means:
Slipping while trying to put your foot down.
So it’s what you do on a slippery surface.
- In der Küche ist Öl auf dem Boden. Pass auf, dass du nicht ausrutschst.
- There’s oil on the floor in the kitchen. Watch out not to slip and fall.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich bin heute dreimal ausgerutscht.
- I slipped three times today.
(meaning: I slipped while walking) - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And that’s it.
For other types of accidental slipping, you’ll probably need….
abrutschen. abrutschen is more about slipping off, and the core idea is kind of losing the desired track or halt.
It works for instance when you’re climbing or you’re trying to hold on to some rail. But it also works when you’re slicing onions and you slip with the knife and even if you try to draw something and then your hands slips a bit off the desired track.
- Ohne Kreide rutscht man leichter ab.
- Without chalk, it’s easier to slip.
(Context: climbing and bouldering) - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich bin beim Zwiebelschneiden abgerutscht.
- I slipped while cutting onions.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Oh, and it also works in a more figurative sense of slipping “down”, away from a desired position or path in life.
- Thomas ist seit der Trennung voll abgerutscht.
- Thomas has really gone into a slump since the breakup.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Cool.
Now, those two are probably the most important prefix versions of rutschen, but they’re of course not the only ones.
More Relatives of ‘rutschen’
Most of them are pretty self explanatory though, especially when you see them in context, so let’s just check out some
- Das Handy ist mit Klett, damit es nicht aus der Tasche rausrutscht.
- The phone is with Velcro, so it doesn’t slip out of the bag.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Mir ist fast das Geheimnis rausgerutscht.
- I almost spilled the secret.
(Lit.: the secret almost slipped out from me.) - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Meine Perücke ist ein bisschen verrutscht.
- My wig has slid out of place a bit.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Weißt du, warum unser Hund mit dem Po auf dem Boden herumrutscht?
- Do you know why our dog is sliding around with the butt on the floor?
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich bin fast wieder in meine alte Routine reingerutscht.
- I almost slipped back into my old routine.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
No real surprises here as you can see.
Then, there are a few sort of expressions that are worth mentioning. The first one is “die Hand rutscht jemandem (Dative) aus” which is a euphemism for slapping someone in the face.
- Meinem Chef ist die Hand ausgerutscht, als ich nach mehr Geld gefragt habe.
- My boss slapped me when I asked for more money.
(Lit: “The hand slipped out from him”)
Then there is the noun der Ausrutscher, which is a nice colloquial term for a slip-up.
- Das mit Maria… das war ein Ausrutscher. Kommt nicht wieder vor, okay?
- The thing with Maria… that was a slip-up. It’s not happening again, okay?
And there’s the colloquial in einem Rutsch, which means in one go.
- Das machen wir alles in einem Rutsch.
- We’ll do everything in one go.
But I think these are quite easy to understand as well, and the same goes for the the more normal related words…
- der Erdrutsch (the landslide)
- die Rutsche (the slide on a playground)
- rutschfest (anti-slip)
- der Ausrutscher (the slip-up – a one time mistake)
- das Rutschverhalten (the skid behavior of a car)
Oh, and not to forget this absolutely beautiful word:
- Artischoken
Oh, hold on… sorry… I meant this one.
- Antirutschsocken (grip socks)
No word combines technical, precise terminology with pragmatism and casual-cozy quite like this one.
And that’s it for today.
This was our look at rutschen and it’s family.
As always, if you want to check how much you remember, just take the little quiz I have prepared for you.
And of course if you have any questions or suggestions, just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time.
Further reading:
Hi Emanuel, wie sagt man „slide into your DMs“ auf Deutsch? :)
Da sagt man normalerweise “in die DMs sliden” oder “ist in meine DMs geslidet”. Das haben wir einfach übernommen. “rutschen” klingt viel zu “accidental” dafür.
Danke!
Hi Emmanuel. Your website isn’t displaying properly for me right now, it’s as if the style sheet isn’t being applied to everything above the article. Is that just me, or has something broken?
I switched to a new search layout and the old one is stuck in browser cache for some reason, even though I renamed files etc.
If you’re on desktop, you can try ctrl+f5 for a full reload. On mobile, it’ll sort itself out or you clear the site data. I’ll also try to repackage the styles so maybe the get loaded then. Sorry for that, I know it’s annoying but I can’t avoid this unfortunately.
It seems to have sorted itself out, no problem!
So, what’s the connection between rutschen and new year? Danke
“Rutsch” is “the sliding” so people wish each other a nice “slide into the new year”.
I have an article about that too, if you’re interested:
https://yourdailygerman.com/the-meaning-of-guten-rutsch/
One theory also says that it comes from Yiddish “rosh” which means something like “start”, and the Germans just morphed that into Rutsch, but this theory is contested.
love this!! :) love your stuff in general, but I don’t come here often enough. The quizzes, and being able to mark things as done make it feel more rewarding :) but I have loved your style for years. The single best German resource I have ever come across. Thankyou!! :D
Hallo,
I didn’t find any typos in the article itself, but you wrote “rustchen” in Q1 ;)
And I aced the quiz :))
Bis bald!
Ha, yeah, the more often I type it, the more often my fingers “improvise” over the spelling.
You forgot to link the Rücken article:)
All the best and plenty of health in the new year.
Added now, thanks :)
Oh, by the way, I’m not sure how common it is, but I’ve heard it now and then over the years – there’s a noun, “der Ausrutscher,” meaning (I think always figuratively) some kind of a lapse in self-control or dignity – a slip-up. :)
EDIT: I see that it’s listed in the vocab tags at the top, but it’s not discussed in the article
Oh damn it. I originally had a separate section for “ausrutschen” where I wanted to cover ausrutschen, rausrutschen and this, but then I decided to “rotate” the narrative and anchor around “ausrutschen” vs “abrutschen”. And then I just forgot.
I have added it now toward the end and also two other idioms:
– die Hand ausrutschen
– in einem Rutsch
I’m sure you know these already.
What I haven’t added is “jemandem den Buckel runterutschen” because it’s just not that common in daily life.
Great! I just learned this verb a few days ago. One has to love a language that can come up with a word like “Zwiebelschneiden.” It names an entire activity as a noun. This must be why people say that Heidegger is easier to understand in German than in English.
Hard to imagine Heidegger in German being easier than Heidegger in anything. They had such a weird style back then and lengthy sentences were definitely fashionable. I have trouble reading it if I’m not super laser focused.
Heidegger is going to be like wading through molasses in any language: to be fair, if you’re going to be trying to talk about the ways and means by which the meaning of “being” has been forgotten for the last couple of thousand years of philosophy you’re going to have to do an awfully large amount of paddling upstream, and do it all without anything resembling a paddle. Even a seemingly simple “What is…?” question becomes a bomb-site, indeed the *primary* bomb-site under investigation: to switch metaphors again, it’s like trying to climb the side of a mountain that keeps crumbling beneath your feet and hands. Some of H’s later works, particularly those latched onto by the environmental movements, are considerably more accessible than Being and Time, but that’s not saying much :-)
On the other hand, it was something of a pleasure to discover the lovely German of Wittgenstein’s later works: I picked up a dual-language version of “Zettel” (Fragments/Slips/Notes…). Here’s one entry plucked at random:
“In der Philosophie darf man keine Denkkrankheit *abschneiden*. Sie muß ihren natürlichen Lauf gehen, und die *langsame* Heilung ist das Wichtigste. (Daher die Mathematiker so schlechte Philosophen sind.)”
[[In philosophy you can’t (cut off/trim/lop off) sicknesses of thought. It has to run its natural course, and *slow* healing is the most important thing. (This is why mathematicians make such poor philosophers.)]] Hmm, not really sure what the best translation for “abschneiden” is here!
Wow!! I love this quote, it’s wisdom.
I nearly didn’t choose the option with “halt” because I didn’t understand what it meant!
The sense of humour got me at the end. I know Guten Rutsch is only before New Year but I’m English, and if someone wished me “Happy New Year’s Eve” (or even “Happy Easter”) on 2nd January, I would indeed just say thank you.
It was as usual fun anyway, and I like the chance to practise pronunciation with these articles. The app thought I was doing OK but I’m still pretty sure that I’m saying Rutsch slightly wrong. It’s a hard word!
Sorry for the confusion about “halt”. I thought I had it fixed but missed one instance in the question.
Glad to hear you’re using the pronunciation option, by the way. I’m never sure how many people actually use it.
Same thing in Mexico. I got that one wrong, too.
Pants can be “slipping” in English too. Like “I forgot my belt today and my pants keep slipping”. It doesn’t mean that they fell to your ankles, just that they are slipping down.
Nice! Though “loss of halt” definitely doesn’t work in contemporary American English, and I’m skeptical about BE too. My brain just treats it as Denglisch: “loss of Halt.”
I think “loss of traction” works better overall. Maybe “grip,” though that doesn’t usually fit as well with slipping on a flat surface (it can – you do hear people talking about tires “gripping” the road).
On “abrutschen” in the more literal sense: I wasn’t sure what the scenario with the chalk is. Wie und wo soll man denn Kreide benutzen, damit man nicht abrutscht? And with the onion example, would you be talking about not making the cut how you meant to – so the blade of the knife rutscht ab, resulting in cutting yourself or an ugly dice? Or is it about your grip on the knife slipping?
Oh thanks a lot!!
I changed “halt” to “grip” now, I think that’s viscerally the best, even if not 100% precise maybe. “traction” is too laden with “gaining traction” in my mind. Like, it sounds too business-y :).
As for Kreide: I was thinking about bouldering or climbing but I should have made that more explicit for sure :)!
As for abrutschen while cutting an onion: it can be either. It just means the knife didn’t go the way you wanted it to, and the result can be a finger cut or just a messed up onion die shape. Which in a 3 star kitchen may be worse than cutting your finger.
“Brazed Onion Die, Suspended in a Hyper-Conducting Lavender-Plasma Field. And Duck Skin Pore.”
“Grip” really is the word used when referring to using chalk for traction. Basically “halt” in German does not really equate to “halt” in English in your uses above, but instead to “hold” (clearly a linguistic relative) or “grip” (heaven knows where that word comes from). I too did not understand your expression “to lose halt.” Sometimes colloquially we’d say “I’m losing hold of the rope” for example but it’s informal. I’m more comfortable with “I’m losing my grip/hold on the rope” – but I also tend to speak (US) English more formally than many. In none of these examples does “halt” work. Also interesting – there is often a difference between “slip” and “slide” – you can be sliding as in gliding, emphasis on the smoothness of the motion, with or without control. Slipping has an undertone of loss of control when you are talking about a physical motion (human or mechanical), but control isn’t an issue when you talk about grades or performance slipping – then, it’s just the sense of going down. All of this US English; I can’t speak for the Brits, or even the Canadians.
grip comes from the german i think – see greifen, der Griff etc
Same family, yes.
“die” is not idiomatic here – “Brazed diced onion. . .” (Diced refers to the cut; “die” is a single cube, “dice” is two or more cubes, but I don’t think we say “onion dice” meaning “cubes of onion”. For some reason, I think “diced onion(s)” is more colloquial: “Cut the onion [can refer to more than one!] into half-inch dice; add the diced onion to the lavendar plasma; and stand back!”
I would also say “diced onion”, and for a single piece, “a single piece of diced onion”. I would not say a “cube of diced onion”. Also, if I understand correctly, “Würfel” is used both for the geometric shape as well as the gaming die. These are not the same in english. While a die (gaming) is a cube (geometry), a cube is not a die.
By the way, my (hopefully correct) understanding of “Würfel”comes from recently stumbling across this at https://klexikon.zum.de/wiki/Würfel. Klexikon is essentially a wikipedia curated for kids, and a great place to practice reading comprehension at a certain stage of learning. Just keep hitting “Zufalls-Artikel” until you find something that looks interesting and you get to learn something while you try to understand an article in relatively simple language. Would definitely recommend it for anyone looking for an exercise like this.
Oh, what a cute lovely project!!
Thanks for sharing!
Hey, just *dice* the onion! It’s a lovely, specific verb ;-)
(Well, I guess you can also “dice with death”, but that’s maybe best regarded as a fixed idiom.)
I would agree with ExDC regarding “grip” in context of chalk. In context of “sliding across a surface after losing halt”, i.e. specifically slipping while walking, I would go with “traction”, or even “footing”, which has less connotation with the surface, but is probably more likely to be used regarding slipping while walking (US english, at least).
PS – “sliding across a surface after losing halt” is still in the question as of this post.
Fixed it now, thanks!
you can also use chalk while weightlifting (e.g. to help prevent the bar from slippping) or doing calithenics / gymnastics (e.g. with the rings). Essential in summer – the outdoor gym near me is stainless steel so its already pretty “rutchig” even when its not a sweaty time of year…
I’m far away from using weights that would need me to chalk up :D
“loss of halt” makes no sense in british english. You can “lose you rgrip” but this makes a little less sense when you are standing so i’d just go for “slipped over” when talking about slipping while standing. Maybe “losing your footing”. As for cars, I’m not a driver but what Berlingrabbers says makes sense.