-ens

See also: ens, ENS, Ens., and -ēns

Catalan

Suffix

-ens

1. masculine plural of -è
2. masculine plural of -é

---

German

Etymology 1

Suffix

1. plural suffix for family names that end in a sibilant consonant

   Schmitz → (die) Schmitzens (“the Schmitzes, “the Schmitz family”)

   Pütz → (die) Pützens (“the Pützes, “the Pütz family”)

Etymology 2

Suffix

1. (dated) genitive suffix for personal names that end in a sibilant consonant

   Max → Maxens Vater (“Max’s father”)

   Klaus → Klausens Mutter (“Klaus’s mother”)

2. (dated) genitive suffix for personal names that end in -ia

   Claudia → Claudiens Tochter (“Claudia’s daughter”)

   Maria → Mariens Sohn (“Mary’s son”)

Usage notes

• In contemporary usage the genitive is usually left unchanged after sibilants, and indicated with an apostrophe in writing: Max’ Vater. Such unchanged genitives, in turn, are often avoided and paraphrased: der Vater von Max (colloquially: vom Max).
• The genitive is formed with -s after -ia: Claudias, Marias. Only the form Mariens remains current, but it is restricted to the Virgin Mary.

Etymology 3

Suffix

1. forms adverbs from superlatives and ordinal numbers

   der erste (“the first”) → erstens (“firstly”)

   am meisten (“most”) → meistens (“mostly”)

   am besten (“best”) → bestens (“very well; best”)

   am frühesten (“earliest”) → frühestens (“at the earliest”)

Usage notes

• Adverbs in -ens often have an absolute superlative sense, meaning “at most, maximally” or “very much, exceedingly”. These forms are widely lexicalized, however. That is to say that they cannot be formed freely, except in poetic or humorous language.

References

• canoo.net: Personennamen
• duden.de: Beugung von Personennamen, Ehrenrettung für Großmutters Apfelkuchen

---

Hungarian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ɛnʃ]

Suffix

-ens

1. A distinguishable foreign word ending in nouns and adjectives. It is not an independent Hungarian suffix.

   ágens (“agent”)

   dekadens (“decadent”)

Usage notes

• Harmonic variants:

  -áns added to back vowel words

  -ens added to front vowel words

Derived terms

Hungarian nouns suffixed with -ens

Hungarian adjectives suffixed with -ens

See also

• Appendix:Hungarian suffixes

References

• Attila Mártonfi: The System of the Hungarian Suffixes, Theses of PhD Dissertation, Budapest, 2006

---

Latin

Etymology

Surface analysis of forms such as monēns (stem monē- + suffix -ns) or legēns (stem leg- + thematic vowel -e- + -ns).

Suffix

-ēns

1. Ending of the present active participle of second and third conjugation verbs; see -ns.

Declension

Third-declension participle.

Number	Singular			Plural
Case / Gender	Masc./Fem.	Neuter		Masc./Fem.	Neuter
Nominative	-ēns			-entēs	-entia
Genitive	-entis			-entium
Dative	-entī			-entibus
Accusative	-entem	-ēns		-entēs -entīs	-entia
Ablative	-ente -entī1			-entibus
Vocative	-ēns			-entēs	-entia

¹When used purely as an adjective.

---

Latvian

Suffix

-ens

1. Added to nouns to form new nouns; possibly simply a variant of -enis.

Derived terms

Latvian terms suffixed with -ens

Related terms

• -enis
• -ene
• -ēns