the most beautiful german words

in october 2004—when the boston red sox were homerunning themselves to becoming the champions of world baseball—the goethe institute and the council for the german language were conducting their own little competition. their goal was to determine the most beautiful german word based on over 20,000 entries. here are the leading contenders.

• lebenslust - zest for life
• erdbeermund - voluptuous lips
• teufelsbraten - rascal
• wolkenkuckucksheim - cloud cuckoo land
• glueck - happiness
• liebe - love
• mitgefuehl - compassion
• pusteblume - dandelion
• sehnsucht - longing
• vergissmeinnicht - forget-me-not

the real star of this list is obviously wolkenkuckucksheim. apparently, it means an “unrealistically idealistic state where everything is perfect,” which makes it close in meaning to the english bizarro world.

drumroll please: the german word judged to be the most beautiful was habseligkeiten which refers to the paltry belongings of an almost penniless person. now go forth and use these words to write philosophy.

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source here.