beschreiben

Word type: be verb
Based on: schreiben

Perfect (spoken past): hat beschrieben

Preterite (written past): beschrieb

Meanings

to describe

(The entity you describe is the direct object (in Accusative) and the person(s) you're describing it to is in Dative.)

to write on something

(Literally the act of "putting writing onto an object". Also works for writing data onto a storage device. Sounds super technical.)

Examples

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Word Family

Root: *skribh-

The core idea of the root was:

cutting, slicing

And very early on it was used in the context of leaving markings or making drawings and eventually, writing things.
In the Latin branch, we have the verb *scribere, which meant to write, which is the origin for words like script, prescribe, subscribe, describe and more.

Here’s a (incomplete) list:

script, scripture
manuscript (“to write by hand”)
scribe
subscribe (“to write under”)
prescribe (“to write across”)
inscribe (“to write in”)
describe (“to write down”)
ascribe (“write toward”)
transcribe (“to write over”)
serif, sans-serif (“little stroke, draw”)

beschreiben

Meanings

Examples

Word Family

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