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
- Check "bis" on DWDS.de
Biggest German Dictionary, great for etymology, usage frequency and collocations) - "bis" 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.

Hi Emanuel –
No matter how I try to think this through, I cannot come up with some simple rules as to when you one uses bis vs bis zu…..Can you give some tips on their respective usage?
Wir haben bis nächste Woche Zeit, dies zu erledigen.
Bis zu seinem Tod war er sehr aktiv.
Bis zum Sommer wird er das neue Projekt beenden haben
Thanks for sharing any insights!
Great question, I never really noticed that :)!
I think a good way to look at it is “article” vs “no article”
Some time indications go without article
All these would just go with “bis”.
As soon as you have a direct article, “bis” alone sounds really really weird.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there is an exception lurking somewhere in the depth of German, but I “ran a few tests” in my brain and this rule held up pretty well.
Let me know if that helps :)