Broad Vocabulary

Word of the Day – “weigern”

'sich weigern' and 'verweigern' are two German translations for to refuse. Today, we'll learn and practice how to use them.

Words we'll learn:

sich weigern, verweigern, die Verweigerung, unweigerlich,...

By: Emanuel| 25 Comments | Updated: July 1, 2026

cartoon about the meaning of weigern

Hello everyone,

And welcome to your German Word of the Day.
“OMG, the OG series?!?!”
Yes, it’s still running, there are still plenty of useful German words and families to explore, and today, we’ll take a look at:

The Meaning and Use of “sich weigern”

Which means we’ll also look at verweigern and a couple of other relatives you’ll come across in daily life.

But let’s start with weigern.

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Sich Weigern

Sich weigern is essentially what your brain does when you ask it to recall that word you’ve learned just this morning.
You’ll like: “Brain, give me this word we learned this morning.”
And you’re brain is like: “No, not doing it!”
So basically, sich weigern means to refuse, in the specific sense of refusing to do something you’re told to do.

  • Thomas weigert sich, die Küche aufzuräumen.
  • Thomas refuses to clean the kitchen.
  • Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  • Ich habe mich geweigert, diesen Sonntag zu arbeiten.
  • I refused to work this Sunday.
  • Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

It does not work for refuse in the sense of refusing an offer or invitation. That would be ablehnen or simply nicht annehmen.

And sich weigern ALSO doesn’t work for refusing an order.
Which might make you go like “Wait, I thought sich weigern is refusing to do something you’re told to do. Isn’t that an order basically?”
And you’re totally right that in terms of meaning it does fit, but the problem is the grammar.
Sich weigern is an actual, true reflexive verb. That means, it’s ALWAYS reflexive and doesn’t work without it. The reflexive pronoun is in Accusative, so basically, we are the direct object ourselves.

  • Ich weigere mich, du weigerst dich…
  • I refuse, you refuse…

And this structure kind of makes sense once you know that the verb comes from an adjective that meant something like resistant, stubborn. If we follow the lineage further back, we actually find a connection to the Latin root vince, which was about fighting and wining. You know it from words like victorious, convince or invincible.

But for us, the notion of resistant is more useful, because through that lens, sich weigern kind of means “making oneself resistant/stubborn”. THAT’S where the reflexive pronoun came from.

And that’s why you CAN’T “weigern” an order, because order is a noun and would be a second direct object.

Sich weigern pretty much always connects with an action in form of zu-construction.

  • Der Barista hat sich geweigert, mir Zucker zu geben.
  • The barista refused to give me sugar.
  • Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

Or just by its very lonesome, if the context makes it clear.

  • “Der Kunde wollte, dass ich ihm Zucker gebe, aber ich habe mich geweigert.”
    “Sehr gut, John. Du denkst mit. Man merkt, dass du einen Master hast.”
  • “The customer wanted me to give him sugar, but I refused.”
    “Very good, John. You use your brain. It shows that you have a Master’s degree.”
  • Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

Cool. So that’s sich weigern. It’s always reflexive (the self reference is in Accusative) and it’s about refusing to do something you’ve been told.
And I guess I should note that it sounds a tiny bit formal.
You could use it for a cat refusing to the cheap dry food I bought, but that sounds a bit … I don’t know. Like the cat voiced its opinion, or put in a formal complaint.

I mean, it did put in something into my shoe that day. Maybe that’s what a ‘formal complaint’ looks like in cat-speak. Little did my cat know that I can also put in these kinds of complaints, so I went to eat Mexican food and then I…
“Dude, Emanuel, can we move on please.”
Oh… yeah, sorry.
Moving on.

verweigern

Verweigern is kind of the result oriented cousin of weigern. The prefix ver- is wearing its signature vibe of ‘away’ and the verb is basically about denying or refusing someone something they want.

And here, we don’t have to deal with reflexive pronouns. The thing you’re ‘refusing to give’ is the direct object (so, Accusative) and the person you deny it to can be added as Dative object.

  • Thomas verweigert die Zusammenarbeit.
  • Thomas is refusing cooperation.
  • Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  • Thomas verweigert seinem Mitbewohner Zutritt zur Küche.
  • Thomas denies his flat-mate access to the kitchen.
  • Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

Now, this does seem like it could be a handy verb, but it’s honestly just another one for Mt. Passive, that big mountain of passive vocabulary.
Why?
Well, sich weigern sounds a little formal but people do use it in daily life. Verweigern sounds SUPER formal and it’s also not reliably idiomatic. It ONLY works with nouns, but not even all the nouns.
If your cat wants a snack and you’re like ‘Nah bro, you’re too fat.’ that would not really be a context for verweigern even though you’re ‘denying the cat a snack’.
It’s stuff you see in a doctor’s report or police report.

  • Der Patient verweigert die Nahrungsaufnahme.
  • The patient refuses the intake of food. (… refuses food.)
  • Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

So yeah… you won’t need to use this actively, but you will see it sooner or later in formal contexts.
And the same goes for the related words, which brings us to the last section for today.

die Weigerung and die Verweigerung

The noun die Weigerung is pretty much the verb weigern in noun form, so it’s the act (or statement) of refusing to do something someone wants you to do.

  • “Maria hat meine Weigerung, die Küche zu putzen, akzeptiert.”
    “NEIN, habe ich NICHT!”
  • “Maria has accepted my refusal to clean the kitchen.”
    “No, I HAVEN’T!”
  • Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

Like the verb sich weigern itself, die Weigerung usually connects a zu-construction. And it sounds SUPER formal.

The more important and more useful noun is definitely the cousin with ver-: die Verweigerung.

This also means refusal, but here the focus is on the thing the other person wants but is not getting. So Weigerung is about you saying ‘No!’, Verweigerung is more about the result of you saying ‘no’ – someone doesn’t get something. And that something can be simply attached as a first part of a compound.

  • Arbeitsverweigerung – refusal to work (of a person)
  • Befehlsverweigerung -“order refusal”, insubordination
  • Kriegsdienstverweigerung – the refusal to do mandatory military service

These compounds with Verweigerung are all hellah formal and you cannot just play around and make up new ones, sadly. I mean, you can. It’s a free country. But it’s also Germany, and we don’t do playful creativity here, except in Kink.
So… as the Haiku goes.

Passive Word Mountain
Snow covered peaks in summer.
It’s nice from afar.

But seriously.
I do doubt that you’ll need these words in active conversation, but I’m sure you’ll see them sooner or later, if you consume German media or content. Or to say it in German.

  • Wenn ihr deutsche Medien konsumiert, werdet ihr unweigerlich Wörter wie ‘Verweigerung’ sehen.
  • If you consume German media, you’ll inevitably see words like ‘Verweigerung‘.
  • Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

And that’s it for today.
Yes, every post has to unweigerlich come to an end :).

This was our look at the meaning and use of sich weigern, verweigern and the related nouns.

As always, if you want to check how much you remember, just take the little quiz I have prepared.

And if you want to PRACTICE the words of the lesson… well, just get some reading comprehension based on them with my awesome new tool below.
And of course, if you have any questions are suggestions, just leave me a comment and we’ll talk more there.

I hope you enjoyed it and that your brains are not sich weigern to remember a thing or two.
Have a great week and see you next time.

Oh, and here’s the link to the older article on the same topic… pure nostalgia.

 

‘sich weigern’ – The Quiz

 

Text Comprehension Practice with ‘weigern’

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Broad Vocabulary
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