Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Low German: used especially with reference to language. See II.
  • noun The Low German language, in a restricted sense; the popular speech of northern Germany, possessing a considerable literature. See Low German, under German, n.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The modern dialects spoken in the north of Germany, taken collectively; modern Low German. See Low German, under german.

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

  • proper noun Low German

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

[German (translation of Dutch Platduits, Low German) : platt, low, flat (from Middle Dutch plat, from Old French; see plate) + German Deutsch, German (from Middle High German diutsch, from Old High German diutisc, of the people; see teutā- in Indo-European roots).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Borrowed from German Plattdeutsch.

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Examples

  • Anyway the man explained they are Mennonites, they speak a language called Plattdeutsch, which is a dialect of German, they work as farmers and live apart from the general Paraguayan community in a colony, in this particular colony, there are 5000 of them, they have their own schools and hospitals, basically a country within a country.

    TravelPod.com Recent Updates 2009

  • Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dijkstra is Dutch, actually, although Plautdeutsch, also called Plattdeutsch, was spoken in the lowland ares of Germany north of Holland.)

    GreenCine Daily 2009

  • Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dijkstra is Dutch, actually, although Plautdeutsch, also called Plattdeutsch, was spoken in the lowland ares of Germany north of Holland.)

    GreenCine Daily 2009

  • Kids play underfoot while the grownups deal, in Polish, Russian, north-Baltic, Plattdeutsch.

    Gravity's Rainbow Pynchon, Thomas 1978

  • Folks have been teaching him dialects, Plattdeutsch for the zone the British plan to occupy, Thur-ingian if the Russians happen not to drive as far as Nordhausen, where die central rocket works is located.

    Gravity's Rainbow Pynchon, Thomas 1978

  • Berlinese, whose vernacular is strongly tinged with _Plattdeutsch_ forms from the lower Elbe.

    Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1876 Various

  • America, the Modern Greek or Romaic, Lowland Scotch, and Plattdeutsch, the very frequent employment of diminutives has come to be a marked characteristic of the common speech of the people.

    The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day Alexander F. Chamberlain

  • The High German now spoken in northern Germany is not of great age, but is due to the spread of standardized German, based on Upper Saxon, a High German dialect, at the expense of “Plattdeutsch.

    Chapter 10. Language, Race and Culture 1921

  • You can talk Plattdeutsch something grand, as long as you keep the verbs and nouns in American.

    Free Air Sinclair Lewis 1918

  • “Aye, something of the sort, ” the servant replied in Plattdeutsch, and later I learned that this dialect had been in full swing here, as well as the Frisian, for over a hundred years; “the dikemaster and the overseers and the other landholders!

    Paras. 1–99 1917

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