German has a superpower: it stacks words together like building blocks to create new, wonderfully specific nouns. Ever seen a word like Handschuh and wondered what on earth a ‘hand shoe’ is? Spoiler: it’s a glove. Once you see the logic, these compound nouns go from intimidating to fascinating.
This list rounds up about 200 everyday German compound nouns-not the five-syllable monsters that only appear in legal documents, but the ones you’ll actually hear in conversation, read on signs, or need when you’re fumbling for the right word. Each entry comes with a plain-English meaning and a natural example sentence so you can see how the word behaves in the wild.
We’ve added audio for every single entry-tap the play button to hear the word spoken clearly, because hearing it once beats reading it ten times. And when you want to take the list offline, the free Download PDF button below the table has you covered. No gimmicks, just a clean PDF you can keep on your phone or print out.
If this topic helped, explore more in our German learning section. it’s the easiest way to keep building related vocabulary without jumping around the web.
Quick Quiz
Think you can spot a compound noun in the wild? The quiz below tosses a few at you – see how many you already know.
Browse the Full List
| Word | Type | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Abbildung | Other | depiction, representation |
| absichtlich | Adjective | intentional, deliberate, willful, intended, wilful |
| aha | Other | aha! oh I see! |
| aha | Other | aha! oh I see! |
| aha | Other | aha! oh I see! |
| angetan | Other | apt, calculated |
| Antike | Other | classical antiquity, ancient world |
| au | Other | ouch! ow! |
| auslegen | Verb | lay out, spread out |
| Ausstattung | Other | provision, supply |
| Bastard | Other | hybrid |
| begleichen | Verb | settle, pay off, discharge, square, honor, honour, pay |
| begrenzt | Adjective | limited, restricted |
| Beschluss | Other | decision, decision, resolution |
| beschweren | Verb | weight down |
| Bessere | Other | that which is better |
| betragen | Verb | amount to, total, come to, work out at, run to |
| Blockade | Other | blockade |
| brät | Other | pork sausage meat |
| bullen | Verb | be on heat |
| campen | Verb | camp |
| dadurch | Verb | that way, through it |
| daraus | Verb | hence, thence, from this |
| darunter | Verb | underneath (, underneath, below it |
| Date | Other | date |
