meinen

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German

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Etymology 1

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From Middle High German meinen, from Old High German meinen, from Proto-Germanic *mainijaną (to mean, think; lament).

Germanic cognates include Bavarian manan, moana, West Frisian miene (to deem, think) (Old Frisian mēna (to signify)), Dutch menen (to believe, think, mean) (Middle Dutch menen (to think, intend)), English mean, Old Saxon mēnian. Indo-European cognates include Old Irish mían (wish, desire) and Polish mienić (to signify, believe). Related to moan.

Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈmaɪ̯nən/, [ˈmaɪ̯nən], [ˈmaɪ̯nn̩]
  • Audio:(file)
  • Audio:(file)

Verb

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meinen (weak, third-person singular present meint, past tense meinte, past participle gemeint, auxiliary haben)

  1. to opine, to think; to believe; to suppose
    Synonyms: denken, glauben
    Ich meine, das war letztes oder vorletztes Jahr.
    I think it was last year or the year before.
  2. to say; to utter; not used with nouns; not used in the imperative and rarely in the infinitive
    Synonym: sagen
    Entschuldige, was meintest du gerade?
    Sorry, what did you just say?
  3. to mean; to be convinced or sincere about something
    Das sagt er nicht nur, das meint er auch.
    He doesn’t just say it, he means it.
  4. to mean; to have in mind; to convey
    Was meintest du damit?
    What did you mean by that?
    Meinst du das rote oder das gelbe Haus?
    Do you mean the red or the yellow house?
  5. (now rare) to mean; to signify
    Synonyms: bedeuten, heißen
    Was meint dieses Wort?
    What does this word mean?
Conjugation
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Derived terms
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Etymology 2

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Inflected form of mein.

Pronunciation

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Determiner

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meinen m sg or pl

  1. (possessive) inflection of mein:
    1. accusative masculine singular
    2. dative plural
Usage notes
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  • In colloquial spoken German, the masculine nominative forms mein, dein, kein, etc may not be distinguished from the accusative forms meinen, deinen, keinen etc in adjectival use. The distinction is maintained in substantival use, i.e. without a following noun.

Further reading

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  • meinen” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
  • meinen” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon
  • meinen” in Duden online
  • meinen” in OpenThesaurus.de

Old High German

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Etymology

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From Proto-Germanic *mainijaną.

Verb

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meinen

  1. to mean, think, name

Conjugation

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References

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  1. Köbler, Gerhard, Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, (6. Auflage) 2014