trocken

German

Etymology

From Middle High German trucken, trocken, from Old High German truckan, trokkan (“dried out, parched, thirsty, dry”), from Proto-West Germanic *drukn, from Proto-Germanic *druknaz, *druhnaz (“dry”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰerǵʰ- (“to strengthen; become hard or solid”), from *dʰer- (“to hold, hold fast, support”).

The form trucken was originally predominant, but the word eventually became standardized in an old western variant with -o-. Cognate with Old Saxon drokno (“dry”, adverb), Old English ġedrycnan (“to dry up”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈtʁɔkən/, ,

• Audio

  (file)

• Audio

  (file)

Adjective

trocken (strong nominative masculine singular trockener, comparative trockener, superlative am trockensten)

1. dry (not wet; lacking water)

   Antonyms: feucht, nass

   Ein Bier, bitte, meine Kehle ist ganz trocken.

   A beer, please, my throat is really dry.

2. (wine) dry (not sweet)

   Antonyms: lieblich, halbtrocken

3. (person) dry (abstinent after having had an alcohol problem)
4. (joke) dry (subtly humorous, and often mildly rude)
5. dry (dull, boring)

Declension

Hyponyms

• staubtrocken

Derived terms

• trocknen

Related terms

• Trockeneis
• Trockenschrank

Further reading

• “trocken” in Duden online
• “trocken” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• Friedrich Kluge (1883) “trocken”, in John Francis Davis, transl., Etymological Dictionary of the German Language, published 1891