Friedhof

German

Alternative forms

Freithof (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle High German vrīthof, from Old High German frīthof, derived from frīten (“to enclose”) + Hof (“yard”). In Early Modern German, the word came to be associated with distantly related Frieden (“peace”), probably at first through interaction of diphthongising and non-diphthongising dialects, but then leading to semantic remotivation as “place of final peace”. Cognate with archaic Dutch vrijthof.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ˈfʁiːtˌhoːf/
Audio: (file)
Hyphenation: Fried‧hof
Rhymes: -oːf

Noun

Friedhof m (strong, genitive Friedhofes or Friedhofs, plural Friedhöfe)

cemetery, graveyard
Synonym: (less common) Kirchhof

Declension

Declension of Friedhof [masculine, strong]

	singular			plural
	indef.	def.	noun	def.	noun
nominative	ein	der	Friedhof	die	Friedhöfe
genitive	eines	des	Friedhofes, Friedhofs	der	Friedhöfe
dative	einem	dem	Friedhof, Friedhofe¹	den	Friedhöfen
accusative	einen	den	Friedhof	die	Friedhöfe

¹Now rare, see notes.

Related terms

Frieden m
Friedhofsgärtner m (“cemetery gardner”)
Friedhofskapelle f (“cemetery chapel”)
Hof m

“Friedhof” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
“Friedhof” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon
“Friedhof” in Duden online
Friedhof on the German Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^de
Friedrich Kluge (1883) “Friedhof”, in John Francis Davis, transl., Etymological Dictionary of the German Language, published 1891