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dachshund n.

from Dachshund "badger hound": a small dog of a breed of German origin originally used to hunt badgers. In German-speaking countries dachshunds are more often called Dackel nowadays, but also Dachsel and Dachser.

• "On the carpet in front of the fire, a pretty little dachshund was curled up asleep with its nose tucked into its belly." Roald Dahl, "The Landlady", Kiss Kiss, 1959, p. 10.
• "'Who ever heard of a German without a dachshund?'" Christopher Morley, The Haunted Bookshop, 1918.
• "'I'm raising a dachshund now—by your methods.'" Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers, 1959.
• Contemporary Dachshund, by Eileen Falconer-Douglas, 1999.
• The Dachshund: A Dog for Town and Country, by Ann Gordon, 2001.
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das ist gut

"that is good": a phrase used in English-language media without translation because it is easily understood while still sounding very German.

• "Does he have DAS?"
  "DAS what?"
  "Das ist gut."
  "Damage Avoidance System."
  A.I. - Artificial Intelligence, directed by Steven Spielberg, 2001.
• "'Das ist gut.' 'Die Engel-kinder!' cried the poor things, as they ate, and warmed their purple hands at the comfortable blaze." Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, 1869, p. 14.
• "It was given to men of square determined stature with grim reliability and efficient ways to work and tend these slopes and gather the harvest. God saw das ist was gut and he rested." Ralph Steadman, The Grapes of Ralph: Wine According to Ralph Steadman, 1996, p. 78. This is intentionally horrible grammar. Correct German would be, "Gott sah, dass es gut war..."

deaner n.

See diener.

deckel, deckle n.

from Deckel "cover, lid": a paper-making frame; the rough edge on paper or other materials (as if) left by a deckel (deckel edge, featheredge); a metal plate with a pattern punched out of it and placed in front of a light to produce an outline on a stage; a cut of beef over the shoulder of the steer (deckel meat, blade meat) [< German Deckel "little covering" < Decke "covering" < decken "to cover" < Old High German decchen]. This entry suggested by Jan Neidhardt.

• "Nothing on the walls, with one exception: Tacked over the bed was [a yellowed, deckel-edged photograph]." Douglas Biber et al., Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, 1999, p. 906.
• "From the station to the Lycée it was like a promenade through the Danzig Corridor, all deckle-edged, crannied, nerve-ridden." Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer, 1987, p. 279.
• "These two frames are officially called a mould and deckle." Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife, 2004, p. 371.
• "I went to the studio and scrubbed molds and deckles and drank my coffee, but I wasn't enjoying myself because I couldn't figure out what Henry's problem was." Susan Wise Bauer, The Story of the World: Activity Book One: Ancient Times, 2003, p. 116.
• "Say good-bye to club steaks, Newport steaks, flanken, deckel." Christopher Kimball, The Cook's Bible: The Best of American Home Cooking, 1996, p. 233. "Flanken" is German for "sides".
• "Some markets with a large Jewish clientele carry a cut of beef known as 'deckel' which pulls easily into long shreds when cooked. If you can get it, it is far cheaper than flank steak." Zarela Martínez, Food from My Heart: Cuisines of Mexico Remembered and Reimagined, 1995, p. 176.
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delicatessen, deli n.

from Delikatessen (-laden, -geschäft) "(shop of) delicacies": ready-to-eat, often unusual or foreign foods; a shop where such foods are sold [German Delikatessen, Delicatessen "delicacies" < Delikatesse, Delicatesse "delicacy" < French délicatesse "delicacy" < Old Italian delicatezza "delicacy" < delicato "delicate" < Latin delicatus; the notion that Delikatessen comes from German delikat "delicate, fine" + Essen "food" is a folk etymology and therefore incorrect].

• "In order to do this, many pathologists have taken to describing diseased organs as if they were food, earning themselves the name, delicatessen pathologists." Michael Crichton writing as Jeffery Hudson, A Case of Need, 1968.
• "The Porsche jumped the curb, plowed through a stack of black plastic garbage bags, and crashed through the plate glass window of a small delicatessen that was closed for the night." Janet Evanovich, Eleven on Top (A Stephanie Plum Novel), 2005, p. 69.
• "The place [the Bagel Bin on Little Santa Monica] was New Age Deli: glass cases of smoked fish and meat and all the right salads, but the stainless-steel/vinyl ambience was autopsy room." Jonathan Kellerman, Rage (An Alex Delaware Novel), 2005, p. 176.
• "Though they had few servants, yet with gas stoves, electric ranges and dish-washers and vacuum cleaners, and tiled kitchen walls, their houses were so convenient that they had little housework, and much of their food came from bakeries and delicatessens." Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, 1922.
• "At one point a thirty-minute meal break was called and three or four of our company hurried across the street to a small restaurant-deli." Steve Allen, Dumbth: The Lost Art of Thinking, With 101 Ways to Reason Better and Improve Your Mind, 1998, p.101-2.
• "The stories are not those I expect to hear, of people getting sick from drinking unpasteurized milk or eating deviled eggs left too long in the hot sun at a picnic, but tales of peopled sickened by contaminated parsley and scallions, cantaloupes, leaf lettuce, sprouts, orange juice, and almonds; refrigerated potato salad, eggs, chicken, salami, and beans; hot dogs, hamburgers, deli meats." Jennifer Ackerman, "Food: How Safe?" National Geographic, May 2002, p. 9.
• Delicatessen One, by Various Artists, 1999.
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Der Freischütz n.

See Freischütz, Der.

der Führer n.

See Führer.

Der Kindestod n.

See Kindestod, Der.

Der Weihnachtsbaum n.

See Weihnachtsbaum, Der.

Deutsche Bundesbank n.

See Bundesbank.

deutsche mark, deutschemark, Deutsche mark, Deutschemark, Deutschmark, D-mark, DM, DEM n. [pl. Deutschemark, Deutschemarks, Deutschmarks ]

from deutsche Mark "German mark". See further examples under Commerzbank and Wirtschaftswunder.

• "Deutschmarks or dollars, American Express will do nicely. Thank you!" Tina Turner, Private Dancer.
• "In the '50s and '60s the deutsche mark went on to serve as anchor of Germany's economic miracle." Jordan Bonfante, "A German Requiem", Time, July 6, 1998, p. 21.
• Fifty Years of the Deutsche Mark: The Central Bank and the Currency Since 1948, by Ernst Baltensperger, 1999.
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"Deutschland über alles" n.

"Germany over everything": also known as the Deutschlandlied "Germany song", the national anthem of Germany, sung to the tune of the Emperor's Hymn or Austria, the Austrian national anthem from 1797 to 1918, composed by Haydn. The controversial first verse referring to über alles was replaced in 1950 with the third verse referring to unity, justice and freedom. The text on the right is from a book published in 1931. Nowadays Deutschland über alles is a nationalist slogan. This entry suggested by Wilton Woods. See also über-.
According to Daniel Molkentin:
"The [phrase] 'Deutschland über alles' had a completely different meaning before Hitler started abusing it.
Back when the hymn was composed, Germany was just a loose association of states which had their own borders and no central government or emperor. That was a major drawback compared to England or France, because among other things the economy was hopelessly inefficient through all the different taxes and currencies inside Germany.
So the Germans had the wish to get some central government/emperor in place. The first verse tried to express that in the sense of, 'Put all your energy into (a united) Germany; it's more important for us to achieve that than anything else' ('anything else' being 'the world', you probably say 'the universe' today).
The first to abuse that in the way of, 'Germany is better [than] every other nation in the world', were Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, just as they made other stuff fit with their Weltanschauung (another German word, funny :)."

• "Just as the Prussian military caste had its slogan 'Deutschland ueber Alles!' so the Knights of Slavery have their slogan: 'Make America Catholic!'" Upton Sinclair, The Profits of Religion: An Essay in Economic Interpretation, 1918, p. 126.
• "Other fun bumper stickers can say things like, BEER DRINKERS GET MORE HEAD; SUCK MY TAILPIPE; HONK IF YOU'RE HORNY; HOORAY FOR THE KKK; or DEUTSCHLAND UBER ALLES." George Hayduke, Getting Even: The Complete Book of Dirty Tricks.
• "The virtuous German had been advancing heroically with the double desire of enlarging his country and of making valuable gifts to his offspring. 'Deutschland uber alles!' But their most cherished illusions had fallen into the burial ditch in company with thousands of comrades-at-arms fed on the same dreams." Vicente Blasco Ibanez, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Die Hand die Verletzt n.

See Hand die Verletzt, Die.

diener, deaner n.

from Diener "servant": a man-of-all-work in a laboratory (Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary), morgue attendant, pathology or autopsy assistant. (Special thanks to all the helpful medical transcriptionists in sci.med.transcription.)

• "While the pathologist is doing this, the deaner cuts the scalp open, removes the scullcap, and takes out the brain if permission for brain removal has been obtained... Deaner is a traditional term for a man who takes care of the dissecting room. It is an ancient term, dating back to the days when anatomy dissections were done by horse gelders and butchers. The deaner keeps the rooms clean, cares for the corpses, and aids in the dissection." Michael Crichton writing as Jeffery Hudson, A Case of Need, 1968.
• "Immediately before the autopsy, the body is removed from the cooler by a morgue attendant who will help with the autopsy. This individual is called a diener (DEE-nur), which is German for 'servant.' Most dieners do not realize the derivation of this word and would probably object to being called 'diener' if they did. Dieners are not formally trained, but many have some background of employment in the funeral industry. For some reason, in the southern U.S. anyway, about ninety per cent of dieners (my estimate) are African-American. I would estimate that less than ten per cent of dieners are female. Dieners tend to work at their job for decades. I think this is because 1) management types don't know what goes on in the morgue, and would not care to mess around with its staffing come belt-tightening time, and 2) dieners are pretty much left alone by management and enjoy a much greater degree of autonomy than most workers at their pay grade and level of education. My own impression of the 'diener personality' is that they are somewhat secretive and cliquish, and one gets the idea that they have a lot more going on in their lives than they tend to let on... For fiction writers, I think there is a lot of character development potential for dieners...." Ed Uthman, "The Routine Autopsy" (or here).
• "Works under the technical and administrative direction of a pathologist. Obtains approval and instructions to begin autopsy, insures correct identification, via I.D. wristband, lays out standard autopsy instruments and apparel for the pathologist. Labels specimen jars, fills formalin containers, prepares tissue cassettes, bunsen burner together with Petri dishes for cultures as requested...." "Hospital Autopsy Support (Diener) Services", Glossary, 1800autopsy.com.

Diesel, diesel adj., n.

from Diesel: pertaining to a type of internal-combustion engine in which ignition is caused by heat due to air compression instead of due to an electric spark as in a gasoline engine; Diesel engine or motor; Diesel fuel; Diesel automobile or other vehicle; named for Rudolf Diesel, 1858-1913, German inventor [< South German diesel "well, healthy" or short for Matthiesel, diminutive of Matthäus "Matthew"].

• "'Champ is the salt of the earth but somehow I can't imagine him joining you in symbolic dancing, or making improvements on the Diesel engine.'" Sinclair Lewis, Main Street, 1920, p. 155.
• "The compression-ignition, or diesel, engine differs in several ways from the spark-ignition engine, although it is based on the same two- or four-stroke cycle." Committee on Fuel Economy of Automobiles and Light Trucks, Automotive Fuel Economy: How Far Should We Go?, 1992, p. 33.
• "The cold diesel turned over instantly, coughing a bit uneasily but then rumbling powerfully, and a corner of his mind congratulated himself for having had it overhauled before he left port." David Weber, The Apocalypse Troll, 1999.
• "This is the point in the infomercial where the guy wearing the CAT Diesel cap asks, 'Do I need a college education to build one of these here multiple-truth Web sites?'" Philip Greenspun, Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing, 1999.
• "One of the Diesel engines broke down in the morning, and while we were working on it, the forward port diving-tank commenced to fill." Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot.
• "This usage is usually found in metaphors that treat computing power as a fungible commodity good, like a crop yield or diesel horsepower." Eric S. Raymond, The New Hacker's Dictionary.
• "... the town's sole gas station refused to sell them diesel for their tractors." Stefan Thiel, "Old Stasi Never Die", Newsweek, Dec. 10, 2001, p. 39.
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diktat n.

from Diktat "dictation, something dictated": a harsh settlement unilaterally imposed (as on a defeated nation); decree, order [< New Latin dictatum < Latin dictatus < dictare "to dictate"]. This entry suggested by Alastair Lack.

• "Weary Iraq accepts UN diktat", Dominic Evans, The Economic Times, June 20, 1998.
• "Democracy is not the diktat of one armed party." Mesfin Wolde-Mariam, "The Ethiopian Human Rights Council and Human Rights", Ethiopia on the Web, July 1996.
• "Investment by government diktat" Robert McKee, World News Magastories.
• "SEBI diktat on trading with CRB-linked firms", The Financial Express, July 8, 1997.
• "It is for that reason that we want to replace the Diktat, and repair the damage to the Union." David Trimble, "Speech by David Trimble at the Annual General Meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council", CAIN Project, Mar. 23, 1996.

Genuine modern Austrian dirndls... ... and Sandra Bullock wearing an intentionally kitschy one in Miss Congeniality.

dirndl n.

from Dirndl "dirndl; girl": a woman's dress with a close-fitting bodice and full skirt, commonly of colorful and strikingly patterned material, fashioned after Tyrolean or Alpine peasant wear; a full, gathered skirt attached to a waistband or hip yoke; any skirt with gathers at the waistband. [German short for Dirndlkleid "traditional dress" < Bavarian and Austrian German dialect Dirndl "girl", diminutive of Dirne "girl" < Middle High German dierne < Old High German diorna, thiorna + Kleid "dress".] See further example under yodel.

• "It is a handsome thoroughfare and well worth an amble, so long as you don't let your gaze pause for one second on any of the scores of shop windows displaying dirndls and lederhosen, beer mugs with pewter lids, peaked caps with a feather in the brim, long-stemmed pipes and hand-carved religious curios." Bill Bryson, Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe, 1991, p. 250.
• "Elvira Wallner, daughter of the pastry chef in St. Wolfgang, wears a dirndl dress and carries an heirloom handbag." George W. Long, "Occupied Austria, Outpost of Democracy" National Geographic, Jun. 1951, p. 777.
• "On Thursday nights in north Scottsdale, the hills are alive with the sound of music—not Julie-Andrews-twirling-around-in-a-dirndl music, but the kind of music that makes your feet want to get up and dance." Kurt Repanshek, "A new generation in Yellowstone, western history gets a new home, revisiting Mount St. Helens", Sunset, Jun. 1995.
• "After all, I'd tried on one of those Laura Ashley dresses, the ones with puffy short sleeves and wide dirndl skirts in tiny floral prints." Gina Barreca, "The Power of an 18-year-old with Hungry Red Lips" The Hartford Courant, Jan. 29, 2001.

Doberman pinscher, Dobermann Pinscher, Doberman, pinscher n.

from Dobermannpinscher "Dobermann's terrier": a breed of dog first bred by Ludwig Dobermann, 19th century German dog breeder. See also pinscher.

• "In the meantime he explained the layout of the house and garden and ordered a full force of Saracen armoured cars, two hundred policemen armed with Sterling machine guns, German guard dogs and Dobermann Pinschers to be deployed." Tom Sharpe, Indecent Exposure, 1973, p. 212.
• "No one sat at the bar except a Doberman on the end stool." Barbara Holland, Bingo Night at the Fire Hall: The Case for Cows, Orchards, Bake Sales and Fairs, 1997.
• The World of Doberman Pinschers, by Anna Katherine Nicholas, 1987.
• Doberman Pinscher Champions 1988-1991, 1992.
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dollar n.

See taler.

doppelganger, doppelgänger, Doppelgänger, doubleganger, double-ganger n.

from Doppelgänger "double goer": the ghost or wraith of a living person; a double; alter ego; a person who has the same name as another. See further example under eigen-.

• "He [Harry] watched as his six doppelgängers rummaged in the sacks, pulling out sets of clothes, putting on glasses, stuffing their own things away." Joanne K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7), 2007, p. 49.
• "Mullin discussed several aspects of individual stories in Strange Meeting: the title story, in which a mysterious doppelgänger abducts a scholar obsessed with Dante's Inferno; 'The Lord of Close Vicinity,' a meditation on the return of Columbus to the Old World, 'The History of London,' in which someone tries to records everything that happened in a single day in that city." David Czuchlewski, The Muse Asylum, 2001, p. 13.
• "'The two women are either related – twins, even – or they're lookalikes. Well, that's obvious, Doppelgangers.'" Martha Grimes, The Stargazey: A Richard Jury Mystery, 1998, p. 147. This quote suggested by Volker Knopp.
• "'And she will never allow Slitscan to run that footage of your doppelgänger.'" William Gibson, Idoru, 1997, p. 363.
• "Ghostly horror by Stephen King's doppelganger." from a review by the San Francisco Chronicle in Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman, Desperation, 1996, p. 548.
• "The spells resorted to get rid of his supposed delusions are alternative that of turning the cloak -- (recommended in visions of the second-sight or similar illusions as a means of obtaining a certainty concerning the being which is before imperfectly seen*) -- and that of exorcising the spirit with a cudgel which last, Corbett prudently thinks, ought not to be resorted to unless under an absolute conviction that the exorcist is the stronger party.
  * double-ganger. [footnote]" Sir Walter Scott, Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, 1884, p. 148.
• "I could scarcely believe that it was I,--that figure whom they called a Consul,--but a sort of Double Ganger, who had been permitted to assume my aspect, under which he went through his shadowy duties with a tolerable show of efficiency, while my real self had lain, as regarded my proper mode of being and acting, in a state of suspended animation." Nathaniel Hawthorne, Our Old Home: A Series of English Sketches, 1883.
• "A species of apparition, similar to what the Germans call a Double-Ganger, was believed in by the Celtic tribes, and is still considered as an emblem of misfortune or death." Walter Scott, A Legend of Montrose.
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Doppler adj.

referring to the Doppler effect or Doppler radar, e.g. Doppler shift or Doppler ultrasound.

• "An associate of Sarno's listened to her symptoms and asked her what no other medical doctor had thought to ask: 'Have you had a Doppler flow test?'" Fran Drescher, Cancer Schmancer, 2002, p. 58.
• "Doppler ultrasound is used to measure the flow of a liquid, for example blood flow." "Ultrasound", Microsoft® Encarta® 98 Encyclopedia.
• Practical Echocardiography and Doppler, by Mark J. Monaghan, 1990.
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to doppler v.i.

to display the Doppler effect.

• "Zona, the only one telepresent who'd ever seen anything like a real jungle, had done the audio, providing birdcalls, invisible but realistically dopplering bugs, and the odd vegetational rustle, artfully suggesting not snakes but some shy furry thing, soft-pawed and curious." William Gibson, Idoru, 1997, p. 13.
• "His words were lost in the scream of a ship, dopplering in at the spaceport behind him." Robert A. Heinlein, Citizen of the Galaxy, 1982, p. 6.

Doppler effect, Doppler n.

from Doppler-Effekt: the effect named for Austrian physicist Christian Johann Doppler (1803-1853), which explains why things sound higher pitched when moving toward the observer than when moving away, and also why stars with different relative speeds to the earth apparently show different colors [< Middle High German topeler "dice player, dice maker" < topelstein "a die, pl. dice"].

• "Smythe unveiled the next lot, a stereographic sensor array that purported to be able to detect even cloaked vessels by the Doppler effect they produced in the subspace continuum." Dafydd ab Hugh, Balance of Power (Star Trek: The Next Generation), 1995, p. 208.
• "'There was a Doppler effect to his scream as he flew over us,' a witness reported, 'followed by a loud thud.'" Wendy Northcutt, The Darwin Awards, 2000, p. 124.

Doppler radar, Doppler n.

a radar system that uses the Doppler effect for measuring velocity. This is the radar police use to measure the speed of cars.

• "Naw. My mom's party Doppler picked it up immediately." Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman, Zits comic strip, Sep. 5, 2004.
• "They didn't have satellite trucks or Doppler radar, or anything flashy for that matter." David Haynes, Live at Five, 1996.
• "Doppler radar can determine wind speed by measuring the speed at which precipitation is moving horizontally toward or away from the radar antenna." C. Donald Ahrens, "Meteorology", Microsoft® Encarta® 98 Encyclopedia.
• Radars: Cw and Doppler Radar, by David K. Barton, 1978.
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doubleganger, double-ganger, double ganger n.

See doppelganger.

drang n.

See sturm and drang.

dreck, drek n.

related to Dreck "dirt, filth, mud", also fig.: to quote Steve Hawley: "Detritus. Useless garbage." [Yiddish drek; German Dreck < Middle High German drec; related to Old English threax "rubbish"].

• "... and suddenly I was in a gloopy passage about public radio as a telephone in a dark forest whereby the brave exchange their messages (Where did this dreck come from? I thought), and I felt thoroughly ashamed to be giving a speech this dumb and wasting everyone's time, I felt bitter shame rise in my throat, I was choking on it." Garrison Keillor, Wobegon Boy, 1997, p. 121.
• "Damn women writers write about drivel and dreck and people fawn over them." Garrison Keillor, "Address to the National Federation of Associations Convention, Minneapolis, June 12, 1993", The Book of Guys, 1993, p. 4.
• Drek!: The Real Yiddish Your Bubbe Never Taught You, by Yetta Emmes, 1998.
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dummkopf n.

from Dummkopf "dumb-head": stupid person, dumbbell, blockhead, fool, oaf, dolt [< German dumm "stupid, dumb" + Kopf "head"]. This entry suggested by Wilton Woods.

• "'Who ever doubted it but a Dummkopf?'" George Gissing, The Emancipated.

Durmstrang n.

See Sturm und Drang.