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 "alte" on DWDS.de
Biggest German Dictionary, great for etymology, usage frequency and collocations) - "alte" 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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so, if someone says z.B “sie ist eine alte kollegin von mir” is that incorrect if the idea is she is a former college e.g. they used to work together (and both might be young still).?
Or does alt have both meanings? But using something like ehemalig would avoid the ambiguity?
also if you search for alte alt does not come up.
Ugh, thanks for letting me know about the search result. That sucks :/. I know why it happens but it’s not an easy fix. So annoying.
Anyway, good question.
“alt” can be used for “former” and I have added it as a definition. It’s more common for apartments though and other things. For people, it’s a bit ambiguous because “alt” can also mean “long-time”
– my old friend Thomas
This is ambiguous in English too.
In German, for “former”, ehemalig and ex are the better choices.
cool thanks for the answer