Leute

German

1. Leute

Alternative forms

• Leut (colloquial or poetic)
• Leut'
• Leude (pronunciation spelling)

Etymology

From Middle High German liute, from Old High German liuti, also liudi, from Proto-West Germanic *liud(i), from Proto-Germanic *liudīz (“people”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁lewdʰ- (“man, people”).

Compare Dutch lieden, luden, luiden, Old Norse lýðir (“people”) (whence Icelandic lýður), Old Saxon liudi, Old English lēode (“people”), English lede (“people”), Gothic *𐌻𐌹𐌿𐌸𐍃 (*liuþs), Serbo-Croatian ljȗdi, Slovene ljudjẹ̑, Bulgarian люде (ljude), Russian люди (ljudi). More at leod and Proto-Slavic *ľudьje.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɔʏ̯tə/

• audio (Austria)

  (file)

• Audio

  (file)

• Homophones: läute, Läute

Noun

Leute pl (plural only, diminutive Leutchen n or Leutlein n)

1. people (several individual persons, a group of people in general, esp. of one kind or another), folk (folks), peeps (slang), guys (boys and/or girls)
   • 1754, Der Königl. Akademie der Wissenschaften in Paris Physische Abhandlungen, Zehnter Theil, welcher die Jahre 1733 und 1734 in sich hält. Aus dem Französischen übersetzt von Wolf Balth. Adolph von Steinwehr, Breslau, page 598:

     Gleich den andern Tag schicketen wir zween Leute mit der Post fort:

     Note: The work also has masculine zween Theile, zween Zoll, zween Beobachter, feminine zwo oder drey Linien, zwo neue Wahrheiten, neuter zwey Stücke, zwey kleine Glasfenster.

Usage notes

• A backformed singular Leut n (“person”) may be heard in colloquial speech. It is rare and usually humorous.

Declension

Declension of Leute [pl-only, masculine]

	plural
	def.	noun
nominative	die	Leute
genitive	der	Leute
dative	den	Leuten
accusative	die	Leute

Noun

Leute

1. nominative/accusative/genitive plural of Leut

Further reading

• “Leute” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• “Leute” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon
• “Leute” in Duden online
• Leute on the German Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^de
• Friedrich Kluge (1883) “Leute”, in John Francis Davis, transl., Etymological Dictionary of the German Language, published 1891