der Hund
dog
Der Hund (the dog) is masculine and takes der. The plural is die Hunde, formed by adding -e with no umlaut. A female dog has its own word, die Hündin, built with the -in suffix that German uses to make feminine forms across many nouns.
Pronunciation catches people out. Hund is [hʊnt], with the final d sounding like a "t". That is a general German rule: voiced consonants at the end of a word harden. In the plural Hunde the d sits between vowels, so it returns to a normal "d" sound and the word becomes [ˈhʊndə].
Compounds are common and easy to guess. Das Hundefutter is dog food, die Hundeleine is a leash, and der Wachhund is a guard dog. You will see the sign Vorsicht, bissiger Hund (beware, biting dog) on garden gates, which is the German equivalent of "beware of the dog".
Two idioms use the word in ways that make no sense translated literally. Da liegt der Hund begraben means "that is the crux of the matter", literally "that is where the dog is buried". Auf den Hund kommen means to fall on hard times. Neither can be worked out from the parts, so they have to be learned as fixed phrases.
The adjective hundemüde means dog tired, and Hundewetter is miserable weather. German uses Hunde- as an intensifier in a handful of words this way, always with a negative sense.
Article / Gender
English
dog
Singular
der Hund
Plural
die Hunde
der Hund appears in the following vocabulary collections:
Der Hund ist groß.
The dog is big.
Simple subject–verb–predicate structure.
Ich sehe den Hund im Park.
I see the dog in the park.
Use Akkusativ after the verb 'sehen'.
Der Hund schläft heute im Garten.
The dog sleeps today in the garden.
Adverbs follow TeKaMoLo: time before place.
- What does Hund mean in German?
- Hund means "dog". It is a masculine noun and takes der: der Hund.
- What is the plural of Hund?
- The plural is die Hunde, formed by adding -e. There is no umlaut change: zwei Hunde means "two dogs".
- How do you pronounce Hund?
- Hund is one syllable, pronounced [hʊnt]. The final d sounds like a "t" because German hardens consonants at the end of a word. In the plural Hunde, the "d" sound returns.
- How do you say female dog in German?
- A female dog is die Hündin, with the plural die Hündinnen. The -in suffix is the standard way German forms feminine nouns, and it usually adds an umlaut to the stem vowel.
- Is Hund masculine, feminine, or neuter?
- Hund is masculine and takes der. It becomes den Hund in the accusative, as in ich sehe den Hund (I see the dog), and dem Hund in the dative.