Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The German dialects of northern Germany.
  • noun The continental West Germanic languages except High German.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Or or pertaining to the language known as Low German (see German); also, in philology, applied to that class of tongues of which Low German is a member, and which includes in addition Dutch, Flemish, Friesic, Old Saxon, Anglo-Saxon, and English.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun A specific language, spoken in Northern Germany and the Netherlands and formerly widely spoken in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Kaliningrad, Russia, which developed out of Middle Low German from Old Saxon.
  • proper noun linguistics Any of a number of West Germanic languages, primarily spoken in northern Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, that did not undergo the High German consonant shift; the group thereof.
  • proper noun nonstandard Any German dialect that is not the official standard, although they are usually only referred to as "Platt".

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a German dialect spoken in northern Germany

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Translation of German Niederdeutsch : nieder, low (from the lowland terrain of northern Germany) + Deutsch, German.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word Low German.

Examples

  • Hence the argument over whether Low German is a form of Dutch or of German....

    The Volokh Conspiracy » But Isn’t It a Bit Hard to Predict With a 7-Year-Old? 2010

  • One of them, though, fires with more "force" bear with me here, this is strictly conceptual, and its dialect region overlaps with the other two; the overlapping regions being what are now Low German and the Rhenish Fan.

    The PIE and Pre-PIE pronominal system from the perspective of a wave model 2009

  • Using only native Norse words would be much too difficult, considering that even a basic verb like bliva derived from Low German.

    languagehat.com: HIGH ICELANDIC. 2005

  • The latter is a form of Low German and might be the main dialect group it belongs to.

    languagehat.com: WILAMOWICEAN. 2005

  • The parents claimed their constitutional rights were violated because West did not allow the mother, who spoke Low German and no English, the right to obtain legal advice and because their permission was not given before police videotaped interviews of the children.

    Ruling stems from case where social workers took kids 2003

  • Although I am quite able to set this word out of my mind as I write this column, let me prattle awhile from the Low German pratten, “to pout,” and then “to prate, babble, talk idly”.

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • Although I am quite able to set this word out of my mind as I write this column, let me prattle awhile from the Low German pratten, “to pout,” and then “to prate, babble, talk idly”.

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • Although I am quite able to set this word out of my mind as I write this column, let me prattle awhile from the Low German pratten, “to pout,” and then “to prate, babble, talk idly”.

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • Although I am quite able to set this word out of my mind as I write this column, let me prattle awhile from the Low German pratten, “to pout,” and then “to prate, babble, talk idly”.

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • I went through the small village, looking at the farmland, listening to the local patois, which was a curious mixture of French and Low German.

    QUEEN’S RANSOM Fiona Buckley 2000

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.