# dutch

Pronunciation: say "DUCH" /dʌt͡ʃ/

## Adjective · Dutch

1. Relating to the Netherlands, its people, or the Dutch language.
   - Simple: From or about the Netherlands, its people, or the language they speak.
   - _The Dutch government announced new flood defenses along the coast._
   - _The Dutch team won the speed skating relay by half a lap._
7. Relating to Afrikaners and their culture, used as an ethnic slur. *(South Africa)*
   - Simple: A rude, hurtful word used about Afrikaners and their way of life.

## Noun · Dutch

2. The people of the Netherlands, or any of certain ethnic groups descended from Netherlanders.
   - Simple: The people of the Netherlands, or some groups whose families came from there.
   - _The Dutch have spent centuries holding back the sea with dikes and pumps._
   - _Many of the Dutch who settled the Hudson Valley kept their own churches for generations._
4. The Pennsylvania Dutch people, considered together as a community.
   - Simple: The Pennsylvania Dutch people, as a group.
   - _Among the Dutch of Lancaster County, the old dialect is still spoken at home._
   - _The cookbook gathers recipes from the Dutch of southeastern Pennsylvania._
8. An offensive name for Afrikaners as a people, used as an ethnic slur. *(South Africa)*
   - Simple: A rude, hurtful name for Afrikaner people as a group.

## Proper noun · Dutch

3. The main language of the Netherlands, of Flanders in northern Belgium, and of Suriname.
   - Simple: The main language spoken in the Netherlands, northern Belgium, and Suriname.
   - _The menu in the Brussels café was printed in both Dutch and French._
   - _Several of his novels have been translated from Dutch into English._

## Verb · Dutch

5. To treat cocoa beans or cocoa powder with an alkali solution, which darkens the color and makes the flavor less bitter.
   - Simple: To treat cocoa with a chemical wash that makes it darker and less bitter.
   - _Manufacturers Dutch the cocoa to give it a darker color and a smoother flavor._
   - _Recipes that rely on baking soda often call for natural cocoa rather than cocoa that has been Dutched._

## Noun

6. A wife. *(slang)*
   - Simple: Someone's wife.
   - _We've been married forty years, me and my old dutch._
   - _He met his dutch at a dance, and they were married within the year._

## Adjective · Dutch

9. Relating to the Germanic-speaking peoples of continental Europe, chiefly the Germans, especially established German-speaking communities in parts of the US, or the Dutch. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: Having to do with Germans and related peoples of Europe, including the Dutch.
   - _Her great-grandparents were Dutch settlers from the Rhineland who farmed in Ohio._
   - _The county's Dutch families kept their German Bibles and hymnals for generations._
11. Careful with money and unwilling to waste it. *(dated)*
   - Simple: Careful with money, and not wasting it.
   - _She was too Dutch to pay for a taxi when the bus cost half as much._
   - _Their Dutch habits, patched coats and saved leftovers, let them retire early._
12. Serving as an inferior substitute for the real thing. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Used instead of the real thing, and not as good.

## Proper noun · Dutch

10. German, the main language of the Holy Roman Empire, in lands such as Germany, Austria, Alsace, and Luxembourg. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: German, the main language of an old empire that included Germany and Austria.
   - _The traveler had enough Dutch to bargain in the markets of Cologne and Mainz._
   - _The pastor preached in Dutch to the German-speaking farmers of the valley._

## Other meanings

- (proper noun) A male given name, used more often as a nickname for someone of Dutch or German descent than as a formal first name.

## Origin

**Meanings 1–5, 7–12** — From Middle English Duch ("German, Low German, Dutch"), from Middle Low German dütsch and Middle Dutch dūtsch, from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz ("of one's people"), from *þeudō ("people"); it is a doublet of Deutsch, and related to modern German deutsch and Dutch Duits, both meaning "German". The unflattering senses, as in Dutch courage and Dutch uncle, are said to come from the rivalry of the Anglo-Dutch Wars.
**Meaning 6** — A shortening of duchess.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/dutch (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).