hüten

See also: Hüten

German

Etymology

From Middle High German hüeten, Old High German huoten (to watch, take care), from Proto-West Germanic *hōdijan, see there for further etymology.

Cognate with Old Saxon hōdian, Old English hēdan, Dutch hoeden, English heed.[1]

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [ˈhyːtn̩]
  • Audio:(file)
  • Hyphenation: hü‧ten

Verb

hüten (weak, third-person singular present hütet, past tense hütete, past participle gehütet, auxiliary haben)

  1. (transitive) to watch
  2. (transitive) to herd, to tend (animals)
  3. (reflexive) to be wary, to watch out [(often) with vor (+ dative) ‘of someone/something’]
    Man sollte sich vor voreiligen Schlüssen hüten.
    One should beware of hasty conclusions.
  4. (reflexive) to avoid (doing something), to be careful not to (do something) [with zu (+ infinitive)]
    Sie mussten sich hüten, ihn zu kritisieren.
    They had to be careful not to criticise him.

Conjugation

Derived terms

Descendants

  • Danish: hytte

References

  1. ^ Friedrich Kluge (1883) “hüten”, in John Francis Davis, transl., Etymological Dictionary of the German Language, published 1891

Further reading

  • hüten” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
  • hüten” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon
  • hüten” in Duden online
  • hüten” in OpenThesaurus.de