Nachbar

German

Etymology

From Middle High German nāchgebūr(e), from Old High German nāhgibūr(o), from Proto-West Germanic *nāhwagabūrō, from Proto-Germanic *nēhwagabūrô (“neighbour”). Equivalent to nah, nach (“near, next, after”) + Bauer (“dweller, farmer”). The first component underwent pre-cluster shortening, the second was monophthongized from Early Modern German Baur (and then possibly associated with the unrelated suffix -bar).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈnaxbaːr/, [ˈnaχbaː(ɐ̯)], [-baːʁ], [-baːɾ] (standard)

  • Audio

    (file)

• IPA^(key): /ˈnaxbər/, [ˈnaχbɐ] (common variant)
• IPA^(key): /ˈnaːxbaːr/ (chiefly obsolete, still regionally in Switzerland)

Noun

Nachbar m (weak or mixed, genitive Nachbarn or (more informal) Nachbars, plural Nachbarn, feminine Nachbarin)

1. neighbour

Usage notes

• The word can be declined according to the weak or mixed group. Both ways are standard, but weak declension is more common in formal usage, mixed declension in colloquial usage.

Declension

Declension of Nachbar [masculine, weak // mixed]

	singular			plural
	indef.	def.	noun	def.	noun
nominative	ein	der	Nachbar	die	Nachbarn
genitive	eines	des	Nachbarn, Nachbars1	der	Nachbarn
dative	einem	dem	Nachbarn, Nachbar	den	Nachbarn
accusative	einen	den	Nachbarn, Nachbar	die	Nachbarn

¹More informal.

Derived terms

• Nachbarschaft
• Nachbartisch
• Gruppennachbar
• Periodennachbar
• Sitznachbar
• Tischnachbar

Further reading

• “Nachbar” in Duden online
• “Nachbar” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• “Nachbar” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon