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Zwickmühle. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
Zwickmühle, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
Zwickmühle in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
Zwickmühle you have here. The definition of the word
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German
Etymology
Alteration of older Fickmühle, a compound of ficken + Mühle, in which ficken is used in the archaic sense of “to slide”. The alteration was without doubt driven by the need to avoid the vulgar verb. Formally it may be due to conflation with an unattested *Zwiemühle from zwie- (“double”), as well as to association with zwicken (“to pinch”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈtsvɪkˌmyːlə/,
- Hyphenation: Zwick‧müh‧le
Noun
Zwickmühle f (genitive Zwickmühle, plural Zwickmühlen)
- (nine men's morris) double mill
- (figurative) dilemma; Catch-22; quagmire; predicament; quandary (position in which one will suffer great disadvantage however one reacts)
Declension
Further reading