Today I came across a German word, Gegenschein, that I'd not heard of before. It means "a faint, elliptical patch of light in the night sky that appears opposite the sun, being a reflection of sunlight by meteoric material in space". In German, the word Gegenschein means counterglow (gegen meaning against and Schein means light). It reminded me of other words rather more common German words that have found their way into English unchanged. Here are some that I remember:
- Schadenfreude: delight in another's misfortune (Schaden means harm and Freude means joy)
- Weltanschauung: a comprehensive view or personal philosophy of human life and the universe (Weltan means world and Anschauung means view)
- Zugzwang: a position in which one player can move only with loss or severe disadvantage (Zug means pull or tug, Zwang means force, compulsion)
- Weltschmerz: sadness or melancholy at the evils of the world; world-weariness (literally world pain)
- Zeitgeist: the spirit, attitude, or general outlook of a specific time or period, esp as it is reflected in literature, philosophy, etc. (Zeit means time and Geist means spirit)
- Wanderlust: a great desire to travel and rove about (literally wander desire)
- Ersatz: used as an adjective meaning "made in imitation of some natural or genuine product; artificial" from ersetzen to substitute. It should be noted that the German word has a neutral connotation, e.g. Ersatzrad simply means "spare wheel" (not an inferior one).
- Gestalt: a perceptual pattern or structure possessing qualities as a whole that cannot be described merely as a sum of its parts (from Old High German stellen to shape).
- Leitmotif: in music, a recurring short melodic phrase or theme used, especially in Wagnerian music dramas, to suggest a character, thing, etc.; an often repeated word, phrase, image, or theme in a literary work (from leitmotiv leading motif).
That's probably enough for now, although there are many more.
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