Haufen

See also: haufen and häufen

German

Alternative forms

Etymology

From a merger of Middle High German hūfe (hūf), houf (houfe), from Old High German hūfo (more southern) and houf (more northern), from Proto-Germanic *hūpô and its ablaut variant *haupaz, respectively. With the former is cognate Middle Low German hūpe, with the latter Dutch hoop, English heap.

Already in Middle High German the two forms began to influence each other such that the originally weak hūfe developed the strong byform hūf, while the originally strong houf developed the weak byform houfe. In Modern Standard German the vowels -ū- and -ou- regularly coalesced into -au-, which completed the merger. The strong stem is preserved in zuhauf.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ˈhaʊ̯fən/
  • Audio (Austria)(file)
  • Audio(file)
  • Hyphenation: Hau‧fen

Noun

Haufen m (strong, genitive Haufens, plural Haufen, diminutive Häufchen n or Häuflein n)

  1. heap, hive, pile
  2. crowd, lot, group
  3. (euphemistic) feces, turd

Declension
Declension of Haufen [masculine, strong]
singular plural
indef. def. noun def. noun
nominative ein der Haufen die Haufen
genitive eines des Haufens der Haufen
dative einem dem Haufen den Haufen
accusative einen den Haufen die Haufen

Further reading
  • “Haufen” in Duden online
  • “Haufen” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
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