Germany
- 1A country in Central Europe, formed in 1949 as West Germany and reunified with East Germany in 1990; officially the Federal Republic of Germany, with its capital at Berlin.
Germany was a founding member of the European Economic Community.
After 1990, Germany moved its seat of government from Bonn back to Berlin.
UsageUsually no article: in Germany, from Germany. The people are Germans; the language and adjective are German.
Note
The name of the modern country also stands for whatever acts in its name. In The New York Times in 2014 it is the national football team, and in The Wall Street Journal the same year it is the national accounts, with "Germany's current account surplus." In 2025 political commentary it is the government and its direction under Merkel and Merz. The context tells you which institution is meant.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts
- A 2014 New York Times article uses Germany for the national football team. sports.ndtv.com
- A 2014 Wall Street Journal article contains the quoted phrase about Germany's current account surplus. online.wsj.com
- Political commentary published in 2025 discusses Germany's direction in relation to Merkel and Merz. en.wiktionary.org
- 2The German nation and the German-speaking lands of Central Europe, considered as a whole across history rather than as any one state.
Germany gave the world figures like Bach, Kant, and Einstein.
Long before any single state existed, Germany was bound together by a common language and culture.
Note
Because it means a people rather than a state, it travels: Gibbon writes of "Ancient Germany," and Hippolyte Taine's History of English Literature calls Saxon England "a Germany outside of Germany."
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Gibbon uses the exact words Ancient Germany. gutenberg.org
- Hippolyte Taine's History of English Literature describes Saxon Britain as a Germany outside of Germany. gutenberg.org
- 3A republic formed in 1918 with its capital at Berlin, including the period after 1933 when the Nazi regime controlled it.
Germany withdrew from the League of Nations in 1933.
Severing's belief that trade union workers were the most progressive and democratic element in Germany holds up well under investigation.
1996, Paul Bookbinder, Weimar Germany: The Republic of the ReasonableUsageHistorians often add a word to say which regime: Weimar Germany, Nazi Germany.
Note
One name covers two very different regimes: the republic of 1918 and the dictatorship that controlled it after 1933. Historians separate them with a qualifier. Paul Bookbinder's Weimar Germany: The Republic of the Reasonable (1996) names the parliamentary years this way.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Germany became a parliamentary republic in 1918. dhm.de
- The Nazis established a dictatorship in Germany in 1933. encyclopedia.ushmm.org
- Paul Bookbinder wrote Weimar Germany: The Republic of the Reasonable, which concerns the republican period. openlibrary.org
- Bookbinder's book was first published in 1996. api.pageplace.de
- 4The unified empire established under Prussian leadership in 1871, with its capital at Berlin.
Germany acquired several overseas colonies during the 1880s.
Germany allied with Austria-Hungary in the years before the First World War.
UsageA date or the German Empire shows which state is meant: Germany in the 1880s.
Note
The name now fixes on a single state, and English historical writing leans on dates to say which one. Germany in the 1880s means the Prussian-led empire, while Germany in the 1920s means its republican successor.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Germany in the 1880s was the German Empire, headed by the Prussian monarchy. dhm.de
- Germany in the 1920s was the republic that followed the imperial regime. encyclopedia.ushmm.org
- 5The various German states considered over time or during periods of division and disunity, sometimes loosely including the Holy Roman Empire and the other holdings of Austria-Hungary.
After 1949, crossing from one Germany to the other meant passing through guarded checkpoints.
In a Renault 14, they drove from one Germany to the other.
2010, Ilan Stavans, Gabriel García Márquez: The Early YearsUsageTakes a plural, Germanys or Germanies: the two Germanys, the Germanies.
Note
William Clark's Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University (2006) contrasts England with "the Germanies," the many states of the old patchwork. Ilan Stavans's 2010 book on García Márquez drives "from one Germany to the other."
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- William Clark wrote Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University, first published in 2006. api.pageplace.de
- Clark contrasts England with the Germanies. api.pageplace.de
- Clark uses Germanies collectively for the numerous historical states. api.pageplace.de
- Ilan Stavans's Gabriel García Márquez: The Early Years was first published in 2010. scribd.com
- Stavans's book contains the exact phrase “from one Germany to the other.” en.wiktionary.org
Less common meanings
- 6The socialist state founded in 1949 with Berlin as its capital, usually called East Germany in English.
For Western visitors in the 1970s, a trip into socialist Germany meant visas and long border checks.
Travel between East Germany and the West was tightly restricted for decades.
- 7A nominal medieval kingdom forming part of the Carolingian and Holy Roman Empires; by extension, now uncommonly, the entire Holy Roman Empire, and formerly the whole Austrian Habsburg empire.
Charlemagne's successors partitioned the empire, and Germany emerged as the eastern kingdom.
There are few cities in Germany beſides Vienna which contain ſo rich and numerous a nobility as this does: there are fome houſes here which have eſtates of 100,000 guilders, or 10,000l. a-year.
1797, Colin MacFarquhar, George GleigNote
Eighteenth-century English stretched the name over the whole empire. Charles Burney in 1773 calls the Bohemians "the most musical people of Germany." The Encyclopædia Britannica of 1797 finds few cities "in Germany besides Vienna" with so rich a nobility. A modern reader should not shrink these to the borders of a later state, because Bohemia and Vienna belong to the imperial Germany of that period.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 6 facts
- Eighteenth-century English could use Germany for the entire Holy Roman Empire. en.wiktionary.org
- Burney's work was first published in 1773. archive.org
- Burney includes the quoted description of the Bohemians, reporting what he had frequently been told. en.wiktionary.org
- The 1797 third edition of Encyclopædia Britannica contains the quoted comparison with Vienna, in its article on Mentz. en.wiktionary.org
- Bohemia belonged to the Holy Roman Empire during the period discussed. en.wikipedia.org
- Vienna belonged to the Holy Roman Empire during the period discussed. en.wikipedia.org
- 8A township in Adams County, in the US state of Pennsylvania.
- 9A community in Clark County, Indiana, in the United States, that has no municipal government of its own.
- 10A community in Houston County, Texas, in the United States, that is not incorporated as a town or city.
Use it in a sentence
Write your own sentence with Germany, and AI will tell you whether it fits and which meaning you used.
Origin
Latin Germānia ("land of the Germans") came into Old English as Germanie or Germania and then into Middle English as Germanie. It was named for the Germānī, a people who lived around the Rhine and to its east, first clearly recorded in Julius Caesar's writings of the 1st century B.C.E. Where their name comes from is uncertain. Strabo tied it to germānus ("close kin, genuine"), but this seems unsupported, and later efforts to find Germanic or Celtic roots all run into problems, though it may be cognate with Old Irish gair ("neighbor").