The meanings of “wohl”

Hello everyone,

and wohl-come to our German Word of the Day.
This time we “wohl” have a look at the meaning of:

wohl

It looks like well.
It feels like well.
But is it well?
Well… it depends.

Wohl can mean well sometimes, but not always. And it also has a second meaning that’s really useful in spoken German and that has to do with assumptions.

Today, we’ll find out all about it and learn how to use wohl like a native speaker.
Sounds good?
Then let’s go…

… and start with a little bit of history.
Yeah, I know, you’re all hyped up about usage, but patience, young Jedi!
We’ll get there.
Surprised about the origin you’ll be. Many connections discover you will.

The origin of “wohl”

We already established that wohl is related to well, but there are actually some way more famous relatives.
Because wohl comes from the same family as German wollen (to want) and wählen (choose) and the English will.

They all come from a ultra ancient Indo-European root *wel- and the core ideas of this root were wanting and picking (selecting).
Just think of a bush of berries. You want them and you’ll pick the best ones.

So the German word wollen and wählen actually pretty much conserved that.
But also English will has a clear notion of wanting, even though its main job nowadays is as a means to express future tense. You can see the original sense in examples like these:

• I will that into existence.
• The will of the people.

What about well though? How does that fit in?
Well, that’s actually easy to connect too.

Think about it… if something is done the way you want it, or in other words, it’s matching your “will”, then you’d say it’s well.

• “Well done. This coffee is what I wanted.”
  “At Starbucks your will is our command, Sir.”

And English then started using well as the adverb more and more and goodly slowly disappeared. No idea why. Goodly… I mean… I speak German goodly. That doesn’t flow as goodly as it flows with well.

But anyway, German doesn’t mark its adverbs and gut still means both things: good and well.

• Du sprichst gut Deutsch.
• You speak English well.
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

But German does also have the word wohl.

If you read old German books you might also find wohl used in a sense more close to the English well.

• Habt ihr wohl geruht, (mein König)?
• Have you rested well, (my king)?

And there are a few fixed expressions…

• Leb wohl!
• Farewell/Happy life!
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

But in modern German, the well-wohl is used pretty much only with one verb: fühlen.

wohlfühlen – wohl for feelings

wohlfühlen, or we should say sich wohlfühlen because thanks to fühlen it’s always used reflexively, is a really common verb for the idea of feeling well/good.

• Ich fühle mich in meiner neuen Wohnung sehr wohl.
• I feel good in my new apartment./ I like my new apartment.

We could also use sich gut fühlen and there is a lot of overlap, but I’d say that sich wohlfühlen leans a bit more toward a general sense of feeling comfortable or being comfy and it’s more often related to the circumstances or a place rather than how you feel in your body.

• Ich habe mich in der Bar nicht wohlgefühlt.
• Ich habe mich in der Bar nicht gut gefühlt.

The first one sounds like you weren’t at ease at the bar, maybe because there was a weird vibe.
The second one sounds more like you had something internal. Like you were nauseous or super depressed or something.

It’s not a sharp distinction though and especially in more figurative contexts, the two options are really similar.

• Ich fühle mich mit der Entscheidung wohl/gut.
• I feel at ease with that decision.
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

Maybe the best way to grasp it is the “opposite”:

• Ich fühle mich irgendwie unwohl, wenn eine Katze in meiner Nähe ist.
• I feel strange/uneasy, when there’s a cat around me.

nicht gut would sound a bit too “internal” here.

But yeah, don’t worry too much about this.

What matters is that you remember that sich wohlfühlen has a “comfy” ring to it and so it is no surprise that marketing loves it.

If you spend time in Germany, you will sooner or later use shampoo with a Wohlfühleffekt, use a bit of Sauna-Wohlfühlsalz in a Wohlfühl-Oase or eat a plate of Wohlfühlpasta with a glas of Wohlfühlwein.
And no, I am not exaggerating.
There is even the absolutely incredible Wohlfühlgefühl – the feeling of feeling comfy (check it in a real text here).
Give that man the Nobel price for literature.

Oh and just for fun, I also looked if there were any instances of Wohlfühlkrieg (feel good war) and of course there are. We just love to use the verb wohlfühlen.

Anyway, are there any other verbs that work with wohl besides fühlen?

Anyway, is fühlen the only verb that works with wohl?

Well, yes and no. It’s more or less the only one that’s actually really conjugated.

But there are words like wohlschmeckend (well-tasting) or wohlriechend (well-smelling) or wohlwollend (well-meaning), which are technically verb forms, but they really only exist in this form and they also sound a bit high brow.

The vast majority of wohl you’ll hear in daily life is an entirely different use than well.
One that might be confusing for learners when you do not know it’s a thing.

The particle “wohl” – Marking Assumptions

Take this sentence:

• Es ist wohl nach Mitternacht.
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

An English speaker might be tempted to think that this means:

• It is well past midnight.

So it’s not just a bit past midnight but a good amount.

That’s NOT what the German sentence means though.
The real meaning is this:

• It probably is past midnight.

Here are a couple more examples:

• “Mist, wo ist mein Handy?”
  “Wenn’s nicht hier ist, dann hast du es wohl im Café liegen lassen.”
• “Crap, where is my phone?”
  “Well, if it is not here, you’ve probably forgotten it in the café.

• Na, auf TikTok während der Arbeit? Sie haben wohl zu viel Zeit.
• So… scrolling TikTok during working hours huh? You must have too much time.

As you can see, the word is used to express a likely assumption here and the big question is of course: WHY™?

Well, I couldn’t find a source about where this comes from but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a theory, right :)?

I think, the key to understanding the assuming-wohl can actually be found in English.
Take a look at this example:

• “Where is my book about AI horse-riding?”
  “You took it with you when you were going to take a dump so it will be in the bathroom.”

This is a fairly common use of will in English and it’s not really about future tense. I mean, sure, you can look at it as “The book will be there when you get there” but that’s not really the core point, because the speaker actually doesn’t KNOW. They just THINK that that’s the case.
So here, will is used to express an assumption.
I mean, if we’re really honest, ANY statement about the future is an assumption.

• Tomorrow, I will start working out again.

This is actually a weird blend of things – a statement of intent, a statement about the future, and an assumption. It really depends on how you look at it.

But yeah, with all this in mind it makes a lot of sense that wohl is used as a particle to mark something as “I think this to be the case”. And actually, this personal note is important.

Probably (and its main German translation wahrscheinlich) can be very neutral and “data-driven”.

Wohl is more about your personal impressions or gut feelings, than about actual probabilities.
That’s why “I guess” and “it looks like” are often fitting translations.

Let’s look at some examples, so you can get an impression.

• “Wo ist denn eigentlich Maria?”
  “Die war vorhin da. Sie ist wohl schon los.”
• “Where is Marie, by the way?”
  “She was here earlier. I guess, she’s already left.”
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

• Wenn du heute keine Zeit hast, dann müssen wir uns wohl morgen treffen.
• Well, if you don’t have time today, I guess we’ll have to meet tomorrow.
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

• Ich wollte heute Konzertkarten kaufen aber es ist wohl schon ausverkauft.
• So I was gonna buy concert tickets today but apparently they’re sold out already.
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

• Du siehst enttäuscht aus. Der Film war wohl nicht so gut?
• You look disappointed. Looks like the movie wasn’t that good, was it?
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

• WAAAAS?
  Du willst komplett ohne Training einen Marathon laufen? Du bist wohl wahnsinnig…
• WHAAAT?
  You want to run a marathon with no training whatsoever? You MUST be crazy…
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

I hope you can see the personal, or let’s say subjective vibe.
Using wahrscheinlich (probably) in all these examples would sound kind of weird and detached.

This assuming-wohl is really really common and you should definitely add it to your active vocabulary.

But it’s still not all the wohls out there.
There are some more, so let’s take a look

Other Uses of “wohl”

And I’m actually gonna kind of just run through them without much effort to tie them to the themes we had, because it’s a lot of mind yoga and I don’t even know if it is possible.
So just pick the ones you like and learn them as a fixed phrase, so to speak.
That said, let’s go.

The first one is wohl used to reaffirm something.

• “Frau Schmidt hat gesagt, dass ich viel besser in Mathe bin als duuuuu.”
  “Hat sie nicht.”
  “Hat sie WOOOOHL.”
• “Ms. Smith said that I am much better at math than youuuuu.”
  “No, she did not.”
  “Yes, she diiiid.”
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

Some of you might wonder if we could also use doch here.
And yes, in this kind of conversation, wohl and doch do the same thing.

But the more common way for the affirming wohl is the combination with sehr wohl.

• Du könntest sehr wohl auch mal den Abwasch machen, ohne dass ich es dir sage.
• You could very well do the dishes without me telling you to do so.
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

This use of wohl does sound a bit childish though, so I would recommend not using it. It’s enough to know what it means if you come across it.

Next up, there’s a couple of fixed expressions that also are about affirmation.

• “Du, du und du… ihr putzt jetzt die Klos… mit der Zunge.”
  “Sir, jawohl Sir.”
• You, you and you… you will clean the toilets now… with your tongue.”
  “Sir, yes Sir.”
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

• “Mal ist das Wetter gut, mal ist es schlecht.”
  “Wohl wahr.”
• “Sometimes, the weather is good, sometimes it’s bad.”
  “How true/well spoken.”
  (this one could actually also be the assuming-wohl, so here it depends on context and how you say it.)
• ▶
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

And then there’s the fairly important combination, wohl aber which is a normal but with an added reaffirmation.

• Ich esse zwar kein Fleisch, wohl aber Eier und Käse… ich bin also kein Veganer.
• I don’t eat meat but I do eat eggs and cheese… so I am no vegan.
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

This is more for writing, but the next one is actually one you’ll hear in spoken german sooner or later: the phrase wohl kaum.
This is basically a staunch “I don’t think so”... you know… the one that borders on “In your dreams.”

• Um 6 aufstehen und joggen gehen? Wohl kaum.
• Get up at 6 and go running? Hardly / I don’t think so.
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

And another one you’ll hear a lot in daily life is wohl after a question word.
This is basically a one word way to express that you find something an obvious or dumb question.

• “Wer hat mein Bier getrunken?”
  “Na, wer wohl?”
• “Who drank my beer?”
  “Well, guess who (you dummy)?”
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

And it works for all question words so you’ll have plenty of opportunity to try it out :)

• Wo/wie/warum/wer wohl?
• Who/where/what/how/why do you think? Duhhhh....

Seriously, this will make you sound super native. So if you drop it at the right moment in conversation with German friends, they’ll be super impressed. And it works with all question words.

Cool.

Last but not least we have the phrase sowohl als auch which literally means “so well as also” and which is the German version for as well as. With the very very notable difference that sowohl is placed BEFORE the first option.

• A as well as B
• sowohl A als auch B

• Um Deutsch zu lernen braucht man sowohl Geduld als auch mehr Geduld.
• To learn German, you need patience as well as more patience.
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

And oh, let’s also not forget the noun dasWohl which kind of brings us full circle because it basically means the well-being.

• Zum Wohle des Pferdes.
• For the well-being of the horse. … (this is actually a book title as you can see here)
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

And this one is part of a nice alternative to the somewhat rough sounding Prost!
Like, prost is great for beers and shots, but when you’re there with a fancy wine at an elegant candle light dinner, I recommend zum Wohl.

• Zum Wohl.
• Cheers!
• To the well-being (lit.)
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

And speaking of cheers, it’s time to do that, because we’re done for the day. Wohoo!!

This was our look at the meanings and uses of wohl and the key points were:

• do NOT use it as a general “well”
• sich wohlfühlen is about feeling good/comfy (really common)
• wohl is commonly used to mark personal assumptions
• there are a few nice expressions that are worth adding to your vocab.

As always, if you have any questions or suggestions about any of this, just leave me a comment and let’s talk further there.
I hope you enjoyed this one, have a great week and I’ll see you next time.