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Showing posts with label Dictionary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dictionary. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
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Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Gemütlichkeit
describes a space or state of warmth, friendliness, and good cheer. Other qualities include coziness, peace of mind, belonging, well being, and social acceptance.
English has no direct translation for Gemütlich or Gemütlichkeit. Cosy captures an element of it but crucially lacks those of friendliness and belonging. Stemming from the Scottish Gaelic word còsagach, cozy means "1 Full of holes or crevices. 2 Snug, warm, cosy, sheltered. 3 Spongy", according to Edward Dwelly's Scots Gaelic - English dictionary.
The English author GK Chesterton mentioned Gemütlichkeit in his 1906 book on Charles Dickens. In the first half of the seventh chapter on "English comfort" he wrote that "... the thing you cannot see out of Germany is a German beer-garden", a venue which is the very epitome of Gemütlichkeit in that nation. Later, seeking to define what he regarded as a peculiarly English quality captured in the chapter title English comfort, he continued, "The word comfort is not indeed the right word, it conveys too much of the slander of mere sense; the true word is cosiness, a word not translatable." Indeed, it is no direct synonym for Gemütlichkeit.
English has no direct translation for Gemütlich or Gemütlichkeit. Cosy captures an element of it but crucially lacks those of friendliness and belonging. Stemming from the Scottish Gaelic word còsagach, cozy means "1 Full of holes or crevices. 2 Snug, warm, cosy, sheltered. 3 Spongy", according to Edward Dwelly's Scots Gaelic - English dictionary.
The English author GK Chesterton mentioned Gemütlichkeit in his 1906 book on Charles Dickens. In the first half of the seventh chapter on "English comfort" he wrote that "... the thing you cannot see out of Germany is a German beer-garden", a venue which is the very epitome of Gemütlichkeit in that nation. Later, seeking to define what he regarded as a peculiarly English quality captured in the chapter title English comfort, he continued, "The word comfort is not indeed the right word, it conveys too much of the slander of mere sense; the true word is cosiness, a word not translatable." Indeed, it is no direct synonym for Gemütlichkeit.