How the German word Schein can create some pretence

Last month I told you about lots of German words ending in -schein: How the German word Schein creates something special I told you that ‘schein’ means appearance, but could also mean shine.

And at the end of that post I wrote:

Der Schein trügt.
Appearances are deceptive.

This leads us nicely to words beginning with ‘Schein’. This time they are not all masculine, as the gender of the nouns depend on the final compound, but apart from ‘der Scheinwerfer’, they all pretend to be something.

  • der Scheinanglizismus – pseudo-Anglicism
  • der Scheinangriff – mock assault
  • der Scheinfriede – hollow/ phoney peace
  • der Scheingrund – pretext
  • der Scheintod – apparent death
  • der Scheinwerfer – headlight, reflector
  • der Scheinwiderstand – apparent/ token resistance
  • die Scheinblüte – pseudanthium
  • die Scheinehe – fake marriage
  • die Scheinentlehnung – pseudo-loan
  • die Scheinhinrichtung – mock execution
  • die Scheinsicherheit – pseudo-security
  • die Scheinwelt – illusory world
  • das Scheinargument – bogus argument
  • das Scheingefecht – mock fight
  • das Scheingericht – kangaroo court
  • das Scheingeschäft – bogus transaction
  • das Scheingrab – cenotaph

We also have some adjectives.

  • scheinbar – apparently
  • scheinheilig – hypocritical
  • scheintot – apparently dead

As I said before
Der Schein trügt.
Appearances are deceptive. 🙂

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