Please do not plagiarize. If you would like to use this information in a print or electronic publication, please ask me for permission first and cite this page as:
Knapp, Robbin D. 2008. "GermanEnglishWords.com: Z". In Robb: GermanEnglishWords.com. Jun. 22, 2008.

You can order most of the cited books and other media through Amazon simply by clicking on the titles.

zaftig, zoftig adj.

related to saftig "juicy": full-figured, full-bodied, full-bosomed, buxom, having a full rounded figure, pleasingly plump, well-propotioned, slightly fat [Yiddish zaftik "juicy, succulent" < zaft "juice, sap" < Middle High German saftec "juicy" < saf, saft "juice" < Old High German saf "sap", related to English sap].

• "If you're over forty or fat, stay away from numbers. Euphemisms are your friends. Use terms like boomer babe, sexy senior, ample, voluptuous, zaftig or BBW (Big Beautiful Woman) instead." Myreah Moore, Date Like A Man: What Men Know About Dating and Are Afraid You'll Find Out, 2001, p. 135.
• "The new coffee table and my beautiful Bolero [statue] in all her zaftig bronze glory were a welcoming sight." Fran Drescher, Cancer Schmancer, 2002, p. 106.
• "And, Scurr hopes, ease discomfort for those of us on the more zaftig side." Cynthia Graber, "Battling Exercise-Induced Breast Pain", 60-Second Science, Jun. 6, 2008.
• More books and products related to zaftig, zoftig

ZDF n.

short for Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen "Second German Television": a public TV broadcasting company in Germany.

• "For example, Korinna Horta, an economist working for the Environmental Defense Fund, was in a similar manner thwarted—'banned' is the word she used—from traveling into the region; Dr. Birgit Hermes of ZDF television in Germany was denied permission to bring in a crew that would document the bushmeat situation within the CIB concession; and Gary Streiker of CNN asked for similar permission and was likewise turned away." Dale Peterson, Eating Apes, 2003, p. 170.
• "Barbara Frei anchored the morning news for ZDF." John Irving, The Fourth Hand, 2001, p. 59.
• "A veteran of Germany's ZDF, one of Europe's largest TV stations with an annual budget of 1.8 billion [euro] ($1.5 billion), has been elected to the pubcaster's top job -- ending months of uncertainty about its future head." Christian Kohl, "ZDF ups 20-year vet to its top job", Variety, Mar. 25, 2002.
• "The two German public TV channels, ARD and ZDF, both have exclusive broadcasting rights to the new DTM." Greg N. Brown, "AMG Mercedes-Benz CLK55", European Car, Nov. 2000.
• More books and products related to ZDF

zeitgeber n.

from Zeitgeber "timer": an environmental agent or event such as light or temperature that provides the stimulus setting or resetting a biological clock of an organism [German Zeitgeber "time giver" < Zeit "time" + Geber "giver" < geben "to give"]. This entry suggested by Richard Harvey. See also zeitgeist.

• "This power to determine emotion is akin to what is called in biology a zeitgeber (literally, 'time-grabber'), a process (such as the day-night cycle or the monthly phases of the moon) that entrains biological rhythms." Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, 1997, p. 117. Geber does not in any sense mean "grabber", as stated here, but rather "giver".
• More books and products related to zeitgeber

zeitgeist, zeitgeist, Zeitgeist n.

from Zeitgeist "time spirit": the spirit of the times; the intellectual, moral and cultural state of a period. See also hopfgeist, poltergeist, zeitgeber.

• "He haunted the cellars and satirical night-clubs of South Strands, where the Beats, in those days, were giving their jazz-and-poetry recitals, and felt himself thrillingly connected to the Zeitgeist." David Lodge, Changing Places, 1975, p. 20.
• "I'm not saying that these are today's Nazis - God forbid. I only wondered whether they might not, back in those days, have been equally well suited to be the embodiment of a ruthless, glacial Zeitgeist." Norbert & Stephan Lebert, My Father's Keeper: Children of Nazi Leaders--An Intimate History of Damage and Denial, 2001.
• "In declaring war on cancer, President Nixon was no more than iterating the zeitgeist of popular medical and lay opinion." Frank Ryan, M.D., Virus X: Tracking the New Killer Plagues Out of the Present and Into the Future, 1998.
• "Plain it is to us that what the world seeks through desert and wild we have within our threshold,—a stalwart laboring force, suited to the semi-tropics; if, deaf to the voice of the Zeitgeist, we refuse to use and develop these men, we risk poverty and loss." W.E. Burghardt Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 1903.
• "Or to an Old World zeitgeist so catastrophically hidebound that a few economic reforms won't remedy it?" Michael Krantz, Time Digital, Mar. 17, 1997, p. 27.
• "Like a tripwire on the zeitgeist, the novel provided the first glimmer of the public's fresh hunger for a franchise that had hardly lain dormant since the mid-80s." Bruce Handy, Time, Mar. 17, 1997, p. 80.
• Google Zeitgeist Search patterns, trends, and surprises according to Google
• More books and products related to zeitgeist

zigzag, zig-zag, zig and zag, zig, zag n., v.i., v.t., adv., adj.

from Zickzack: (to move in) a line or course that moves back and forth to form a series of sharp angles [French zic-zac < German Zickzack, perhaps reduplication of the interjection zack!, perhaps < Zacke "tooth, cog" < Middle High German zacke "point, nail"].

• "Down from vague and vaporous heights, little ruffled zigzag milky currents came crawling, and found their way to the verge of one of those tremendous overhanging walls, whence they plunged, a shaft of silver, shivered to atoms in mid-descent and turned to an air puff of luminous dust." Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad, 1879, p. 359.
• "So that Monsoons, Pampas, Nor-Westers, Harmattans, Trades; any wind but the Levanter and Simoom, might blow Moby Dick into the devious zig-zag world-circle of the Pequod's circumnavigating wake." Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, or, The Whale, 1851, p. 198.
• "We had entered the outskirts of the forest of Zenda, and the trees, closing in behind us as the track zigged and zagged, prevented us seeing our pursuers, and them from seeing us." Anthony Hope, The Prisoner of Zenda: being the history of three months in the life of an English gentleman, 1894, p. 76.
• "In a sudden pause of the talk the game would recommence with a sharp click and go on for a time in the flowing soft whirr and the subdued thuds as the balls rolled zig-zagging towards the inevitably successful cannon." Joseph Conrad, An Outcast of the Islands, 1896, p. 6.
• The Zigzag Kid, by David Grossman, 1999.
• ZigZag: A Novel, by Landon J. Napoleon, 1999.
• Zigzag: A Life on the Move, by James M. Houston, 1999.
• More books and products related to zigzag

zinc n.

from Zink: a metal, element and nutrient [German Zink, Zinken prob. < German Zinke, Zinken "spike" (so called because it becomes jagged in the furnace) < Middle High German zinke < Old High German zinko, possibly related to tooth and tin].

• "In addition to the copper ores, the Outokumpu depositis yield iron, zinc, cobalt, nickel, tin, gold, silver and sulphur." Fred Singleton, A Short History of Finland, 1989, p. 5.
• "'Ah, one-horse dentist,' he muttered between his teeth. 'Ah, zinc-plugger, cow-killer, I'd like to show you once, you overgrown mucker, you -- you -- COW-KILLER'" Frank Norris, McTeague: A Story of San Francisco, 1899, p. 169.
• "They would also use mercury for bullets in their rifles, just as inhabitants of the intra-Vulcan planets at the other extreme might, if their bodies consisted of asbestos, or were in any other way non-combustibly constituted, bathe in tin, lead, or even zinc, which ordinarily exist in the liquid state, as water and mercury do on the earth." John Jacob Astor, Journey in Other Worlds, 1894, p. 392.
• "There, as in all Latin America, marginalized and dispossessed immigrants from the countryside lived in houses made of cardboard and zinc." Jorge G. Castaneda, Companero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara, 1997.
• "But Uncle Esteban also took it upon himself to carry out certain more humble tasks which later proved to be the best example he could have given Estefania, such as merely cleaning the gums of the wounded or washing their bodies with ointment of zinc and castor oil when they soiled themselves in bed or picking lice from their heads with infinite patience." Fernando Del Paso, Palinuro of Mexico, 1977.
• "Zinc absorption is also enhanced by other factors in human milk." Martha Sears R.N. & William Sears M.D., The Breastfeeding Book: Everything You Need to Know About Nursing Your Child from Birth Through Weaning, 2000.
• "The prostate's fluid is clear and mildly acidic, and contains many ingredients, most of them designed to sustain sperm outside the body for as long as possible. (These include citric acid, acid phosphatase, spermine, potassium, calcium, and zinc.)" Patrick C. Walsh M.D. & Janet Farrar Worthington, Dr. Patrick Walsh's Guide to Surviving Prostate Cancer, 2001.
• More books and products related to zinc

zoftig adj.

See zaftig.

zugzwang n., v.t.

from Zugzwang "compulsion to move": (in chess) a situation in which one is forced to make a disadvantageous move, a no-win situation; to force into a bad (chess) position [German Zug "pull, move" < Middle High German zuc "pull" < Old High German ziohan "to pull" + Zwang "compulsion" < Middle High German zwanc, twanc, dwanc < Old High German thwanga]. This entry suggested by Alfred Pfeiffer.

• "Zugzwang—that's what they call it in chess. He had to make a move he didn't want to...." Emil A. Draitser, "Zugzwang" Kenyon Review, 1999.
• "In Kippenberger's game, it is always our move, and our options are, as they say in chess, zugzwang: losing either way." Peter Schjeldahl, "The Delinquent" The Village Voice, Oct. 14, 1997, p. 101, according to wordsmith.org.
• "Zugzwang a good thing, if it's not your move." Tal Shaked, The Arizona Daily Star, Jan. 18, 1998.
• "(White: Ka7,Qg3,Nc5,Nh7; Black: Kh1,Nb4,Nh2,P:g2): 1.Ne4! Nd3! (On 1...g1Q 2.Nf2+ wins.) 2.Qf2!! Nxf2 (On 2...g1Q 3.Ng3+ or 2...Nf1 3.Qh4+ wins.) 3.Ng3+! Kg1 4.Ng5, black is in zugzwang and is mated either on f3 or h3." Lubomir Kavalek, "Solution to today's composition by A. Gurvich" The Washington Post, Dec. 25, 2000.

zwieback n.

from Zwieback "twice baked": bread which is first baked then toasted.

• "I got to the point where Mr. Moody feeding nickels into the slot-machine with one hand and eating zwieback with the other made me nervous. After a while he went to sleep over it, and when he had slipped a nickel in his mouth and tried to put the zwieback in the machine he muttered something and went up to the house." Mary Roberts Rinehart, Where There's a Will, 1912.

zwischenzug n.

from Zwischenzug "between + move": a determining chess move.