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 "umgeben" on DWDS.de
Biggest German Dictionary, great for etymology, usage frequency and collocations) - "umgeben" 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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With the ever interesting ‘um’ verb prefix having different effects depending on its seperable or inseperable behaviour, pray what does the seperable um-geben mean? Langenscheidt suggest ‘put something around something/somebody?
thanks.
A separable “umgeben” is not really a thing.
I’m surprised Langenscheidt has a definition for it. Could you share the link?
Pleased to:-
you need to scroll down to find it …
https://de.langenscheidt.com/deutsch-englisch/umgeben
The heading of the section has:-
umgeben v/t <irr, trennb; -ge-; h>
Hmm, okay, so I would NEVER use it that way and I have never heard it but I would understand it from context and I would assume it’s some regional (Southern) thing to say.
That said, the examples that they list below this section are NOT separable. They’re all examples for inseparable “umgeben”: I think it’s just unlucky placement on their part but yeah… it gives a wrong impression.
Off topic:
Since you use the dictionary regularly, I have a question about usability… I am thinking about making the various sections (meaning, family, comments,…) collapsible rather than how it is now with the scroll buttons. Any thoughts? Whta would you personally prefer?
That’s an interesting idea as it means one can quickly dip into the bit one wants rather than wading through it all. Sounds as if your system will be one up on paper dictionaries. But there are times when perhaps wading is preferable as one often discovers bits that would not otherwise have been learned and appreciated. But I thinks speed first followed by thoroughness.
Regarding your answer above … ‘the limits of traditional dictionaries!’
I confess I have a thing about groups of words, like all the types of gebens or gehens, or laufens etc. So I see umgeben and expect to see um-geben! If only life was that consistent!! :))
Just to make sure… are you aware that when you click the words on the left (desktop) or bottom (phone) the page will quickly scroll to that section?
I’m asking because these functionalities may be clear to me, but that doesn’t mean that they’re actually intuitive.
Anyway, I think I will collapse the sections :)
I’ll check out your hint. By the way as far as I am concerned your Dictionary is always my first port of call, but sometimes I go to others as well to try and get a wider perspective or word patterns that help with my oh so Teflon memory [to use your phrase].