die Freiheit
freedom, liberty
Die Freiheit (freedom, liberty) is feminine and takes die. Its gender is completely predictable, and that is the most useful thing about this word. Every German noun ending in -heit is feminine, without exception. The same is true of nouns ending in -keit, -ung, -schaft, and -tion. Learning those five endings gives you the gender of thousands of words for free, including die Gesundheit (health), die Krankheit (illness), die Schönheit (beauty), and die Wahrheit (truth).
The word is built from the adjective frei (free) plus the suffix -heit, which turns adjectives into abstract nouns. That pattern is productive, so you can often recognize the meaning of a new -heit noun from the adjective inside it.
The plural is die Freiheiten, and it shifts the meaning. In the singular, Freiheit is the abstract idea of freedom. In the plural, Freiheiten means specific liberties or privileges: sich Freiheiten nehmen means to take liberties.
Compounds appear frequently in news and politics. Die Meinungsfreiheit is freedom of speech, die Pressefreiheit is freedom of the press, and die Reisefreiheit is freedom of movement. Die Freiheitsstrafe is a prison sentence, built rather bleakly as "freedom penalty".
Pronunciation: Freiheit has two syllables, [ˈfraɪhaɪt], with the stress on the first. The ei in both halves sounds like the "y" in English "my", and the h in the middle is pronounced.
Article / Gender
English
freedom, liberty
Singular
die Freiheit
Plural
die Freiheit
die Freiheit appears in the following vocabulary collections:
Die Freiheit ist wichtig für mich.
Freedom is important to me.
The subject comes before the verb.
Ich liebe die Freiheit.
I love freedom.
Use the article 'die' for feminine nouns in Akkusativ.
Hast du die Freiheit, heute zu kommen?
Do you have the freedom to come today?
Yes/no questions start with the verb.
- What does Freiheit mean in German?
- Freiheit means "freedom" or "liberty". It is a feminine noun and takes die, and it comes from the adjective frei (free).
- Is Freiheit masculine, feminine, or neuter?
- Freiheit is feminine. Every German noun ending in -heit is feminine, so the gender here is completely predictable.
- What is the plural of Freiheit?
- The plural is die Freiheiten, and it means specific liberties or privileges rather than freedom in the abstract sense.
- What does the suffix -heit do in German?
- It turns an adjective into an abstract noun, and the result is always feminine. Frei becomes die Freiheit, schön becomes die Schönheit, and wahr becomes die Wahrheit.
- How do you say freedom of speech in German?
- Freedom of speech is die Meinungsfreiheit, literally "opinion freedom". Related terms are die Pressefreiheit (freedom of the press) and die Religionsfreiheit (freedom of religion).