ausstechen

Word type: aus verb
Based on: stechen

Perfect (spoken past): hat ausgestochen

Preterite (written past): stach aus

Meanings

1.

to gouge out

(Pretty much only for eyes, but you might find it in some gory movies)

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2.

cut out

(For cookies, especially at Christmas, with a cookie cutter)

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3.

to outdo, to ace out

("jemanden ausstechen" - in a situation of competition, where two or more apply for the same thing. Can be a date or a company tender. NOT for sports competitions.)

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Word Family

Root: *st(e)i(g)-

The core idea of this root was:

pointing, pricking, piercing

It’s the origin of words like stick, stitch and steak (which was originally a piece of meat on a stick over the fire) as well as some Latin loanwords like stimulus, instinct, instigate, stigma and style.

The German word “der Stock“, which can be a stick, does NOT belong to this family but rather to the family of *(s)teu- which has a similar theme, but which is much bigger.

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With the pronunciation tool, you can check how well you pronounce a word or sentence. It uses an AI system that is being developed by EF languages for that purpose. The AI takes your input, and compares it to how a native speaker would sound. Then, it gives you feedback for each word and the sentence as a whole.

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