The German word Schein can mean appearance in English, which means it can give an appearance to a piece of paper, making it worth more than a piece of paper would be.
Welcome to the list of compound nouns which seem to be just a piece if paper, but with ‘schein’ added are worth keeping! And because it’s ‘der Schein’ they are all masculine.
- Angelschein – fishing licence
- Anmeldeschein – registration form (colloquial for Anmeldeformular)
- Berechtigungsschein – warrant
- Bestellschein – order form
- Busfahrschein – bus ticket
- Dauerpassierschein – permanent permit
- Durchfahrtschein – transit ticket
- Einlieferungsschein – postal receipt
- Erbschein – certificate of inheritance
- Einzahlungsschein – paying-in slip
- Fahrschein – ticket
- Flugschein – airline ticket
- Führerschein – driving licence
- Garantieschein – certificate of guarantee
- Gepäckschein – luggage receipt
- Gutschein – voucher
- Geldschein – bank note
- Impfschein – vaccination certificate
- Jagdschein – shooting licence
- Lieferschein – delivery note
- Lottoschein – lottery ticket
- Parkschein – pay and display ticket
- Schuldschein – IOU (I owe you)
- Taufschein – baptism certificate
- Trauschein – marriage certificate
- Waffenschein – firearms licence
As you can see, lots of pieces of paper which give the appearance of something important 😉
There are a few more German nouns ending in ‘schein’, which aren’t pieces of paper but types of light
- Fackelschein – torchlight
- Heiligenschein – halo
- Kerzenschein – candle light
- Mondschein – moonlight
- Sonnenschein – sunshine
How many of all those types of Schein do you have?
I’ll leave you with a saying:
Der Schein trügt.
Appearances are deceptive.
After this long list of German compound nouns ending with ‘schein’, you might be wondering whether there are any/ many that begin with ‘Schein’. Yes, there are, but that’s for another blog post 😃