lügen
German
Etymology
From Middle High German liegen, from Old High German liogan, from Proto-West Germanic *leugan, from Proto-Germanic *leuganą, from Proto-Indo-European *lewgʰ-. Cognate with Bavarian liagn, Dutch liegen, Low German legen, lögen, English lie, Danish lyve, Swedish ljuga.
The expected form is Early Modern German liegen; that with -ü- has been standardized to avoid homophony with unrelated liegen (“to lie, be in a horizontal position”). The vowel was transferred from the noun Lüge, where it is original, facilitated by a phonetic merger of these vowels in some dialects. A reinforcing influence may have been the inherited 2nd and 3rd person-singular forms (from Middle High German liuges, liuget), which had /yː/ in non-diphthongising dialects (such as Alemannic German).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈlyːɡən/, [ˈlyː.ɡən], [-ɡŋ̍]
audio (file)
Verb
lügen (class 2 strong, third-person singular present lügt, past tense log, past participle gelogen, past subjunctive löge, auxiliary haben)
- (intransitive) to tell a lie; to lie (to intentionally give false information)
- (intransitive, less often) to give false information (unintentionally)
- Wie alt sind Sie? — Ehm... lassen Sie mich nicht lügen... Zweiunddreißig.
- How old are you? — Er... don’t let me tell you something wrong... Thirty-two.
Conjugation
Lua error in Module:utilities at line 142: attempt to perform arithmetic on local 'h' (a nil value)
