Stadt

From Middle High German stat, from Old High German stat, from Proto-West Germanic *stadi, from Proto-Germanic *stadiz, from Proto-Indo-European *stéh₂tis. Doublet of Statt and Stätte.

• IPA^(key): /ʃtat/

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• Homophone: statt
• Rhymes: -at

Stadt f (genitive Stadt, plural Städte, diminutive Städtchen n or Städtlein n)

1. city (a large settlement)
   • 1931, Gebhard Mehring, Schrift und Schrifttum, Silberburg-Verlag, page 13:

     Der Zerfall des Römerreiches raubte der Stadt Rom die alte Stellung als Mittelpunkt alles Geschehens.

     The decay of the Roman empire robbed the city of Rome of the old position as the center of all that was happening.

2. town (a settlement larger than a village)
3. (metonymically) city center (a central business area of a city)
4. (metonymically) city, town, town council, city council (a governing body of people elected to oversee management of a municipality)

• For some speakers, the plural has an irregular lengthening of the stem vowel. See Städte.
• Not to be confused with Staat.

• “Stadt” in Duden online
• “Stadt” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• Friedrich Kluge (1883) “Stadt”, in John Francis Davis, transl., Etymological Dictionary of the German Language, published 1891