Gemütlichkeit

See also: gemutlichkeit, gemuetlichkeit, and gemütlichkeit

English

Alternative forms

• gemuetlichkeit
• gemutlichkeit

Etymology

Borrowed from German Gemütlichkeit.

Noun

Gemütlichkeit

1. The state or fact of being gemütlich; middle-class niceness or cosiness, hospitality.
   • 1933, Paul Horgan, Fault of Angels:

     John never got over contrasting her taste in clothes coupled with her experiments in domestic interiors and gemutlichkeit.

   • 1967, George Thayer, The Farther Shore of Politics, Simon and Schuster:

     […] and Vincent Sheean "the king of gemutlichkeit".

   • 1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow:

     […] where’d they all come from, these gray hustlers, what shadows in the Gemütlichkeit of the day were harboring them?

   • 1982, Saul Bellow, Dean's December:

     Mr. Corde believes in gemutlichkeit more than in public welfare.

   • 1995 November 12, Brenda Warner Rotzoll, “Milwaukee: A Metropolitan Playground Within Reach”, in Chicago Tribune, TRAVEL, page 1:

     Once the nation's largest producer of beer, it still is known as a brewing capital, and is famous for its gemutlichkeit (friendly hospitality).

   • 2012 August 22, Mark Oppenheimer, “After Dinner, the Fireworks”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     Once upon a time, intellectuals knew they could do their best thinking at home, not in a public venue, and that debate would be helped along by food and drink. But is such gemütlichkeit possible in this country in 2012, when our young century has already been strafed by culture wars and juvenile attack ads?

Usage notes

Both the German spelling Gemütlichkeit and the anglicized gemutlichkeit (sometimes gemuetlichkeit) are found, with the anglicized form dropping the initial upper case and the umlaut. The mixed forms *Gemutlichkeit or *gemütlichkeit (making one such change) are considered spelling errors.

Translations

coziness

• Bulgarian: уют (ujut)
• Danish: hygge (da), gemytlighed c
• Dutch: gezelligheid (nl) f
• German: Gemütlichkeit (de)
• Norwegian: hygge (no)
• Russian: ую́т (ru) (ujút)
• Swedish: gemyt (sv) n, mys (sv) n

German

Etymology

gemütlich +‎ -keit.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡəˈmyːtlɪçkaɪ̯t/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

Gemütlichkeit f (genitive Gemütlichkeit, no plural)

1. cosiness

Declension

Declension of Gemütlichkeit [sg-only, feminine]

	singular
	indef.	def.	noun
nominative	eine	die	Gemütlichkeit
genitive	einer	der	Gemütlichkeit
dative	einer	der	Gemütlichkeit
accusative	eine	die	Gemütlichkeit

Further reading

• “Gemütlichkeit” in Duden online
• Gemütlichkeit on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “Gemütlichkeit” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache