As a German, Alemannic German, and occasionally Danish surname, from the noun Krebs (“crab”).
Krebs (countable and uncountable, plural Krebs or Krebses)
From Middle High German krebz, krebez, krebeze, from Old High German crebiz, krebiz, from Proto-West Germanic *krabit, from Proto-Germanic *krabitaz, from Proto-Indo-European *gerbʰ- (“to scratch”), see also Old Prussian gīrbin (“number”), Old Church Slavonic жрѣбии (žrěbii, “lot, tallymark”), Ancient Greek γράφειν (gráphein, “to scratch, etch”), Dutch kreeft.
The sense “cancer” is a semantic loan from Latin cancer. By metathesis from Ancient Greek καρκίνος (karkínos, “crab”); applied to cancerous tumors because the enlarged veins resembled the legs of a crab.
Audio: | (file) |
Audio: | (file) |
Krebs m (strong, genitive Krebses, plural Krebse)
Zodiac signs in German (layout · text) | |||||||||||
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Widder | Stier | Zwillinge | Krebs | ||||||||
Löwe | Jungfrau | Waage | Skorpion | ||||||||
Schütze | Steinbock | Wassermann | Fische |
From Middle High German krebz, krebez, krebeze, from Old High German crebiz, krebiz, from Proto-West Germanic *krabit.
Krebs m (plural Krebs)