Greif

See also: greif and Gréif

German

Etymology

From Middle High German grīf, grīfe, from Old High German grīf, grīfo, borrowed from Latin gryphus. Early on associated with the unrelated verb in greifen (“to grab”); compare Middle Low German grīp. Possibly a doublet of Cherub.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡʁaɪ̯f/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

Greif m (strong or weak, genitive Greifs or Greifes or Greifen, plural Greife or Greifen)

1. (mythology, heraldry) griffin

Declension

Declension of Greif [masculine, strong]

	singular			plural
	indef.	def.	noun	def.	noun
nominative	ein	der	Greif	die	Greife
genitive	eines	des	Greifs, Greifes	der	Greife
dative	einem	dem	Greif, Greife1	den	Greifen
accusative	einen	den	Greif	die	Greife

¹Now rare, see notes.

Declension of Greif [masculine, weak]

	singular			plural
	indef.	def.	noun	def.	noun
nominative	ein	der	Greif	die	Greifen
genitive	eines	des	Greifen	der	Greifen
dative	einem	dem	Greifen	den	Greifen
accusative	einen	den	Greifen	die	Greifen

See also

• Greifvogel

Further reading

• Greif on the German Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^de
• “Greif” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• “Greif” in Duden online
• “Greif” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon

Slovene

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡràːjf/

Proper noun

Greif m anim

1. a surname from German

Declension

The diacritics used in this section of the entry are non-tonal. If you are a native tonal speaker, please help by adding the tonal marks.

Masculine anim., hard o-stem
nom. sing.	Greif
gen. sing.	Greifa
	singular	dual	plural
nominative (imenovȃlnik)	Greif	Greifa	Greifi
genitive (rodȋlnik)	Greifa	Greifov	Greifov
dative (dajȃlnik)	Greifu	Greifoma	Greifom
accusative (tožȋlnik)	Greifa	Greifa	Greife
locative (mẹ̑stnik)	Greifu	Greifih	Greifih
instrumental (orọ̑dnik)	Greifom	Greifoma	Greifi

Further reading

• Keber, Janez (2021) Leksikon priimkov [Dictionary of Surnames] (in Slovene), Celje: Celjska Mohorjeva družba, →ISBN, page 228