frau

See also: Frau and frâu

English

Etymology

Borrowed from German Frau. Doublet of frow, vrou, and vrouw.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /fɹaʊ/
  • Rhymes: -aʊ

Noun

frau (plural fraus)

  1. A woman, especially a German woman.
    • 1911, John Howard Brown, E[dith] M[ary] Norris, editors, Lamb’s Textile Industries of the United States: Embracing Biographical Sketches of Prominment Men and a Historical Resumé of the Progress of Textile Manufacture from the Earliest Records to the Present Time, volume I, Boston, Mass.: James H. Lamb Company, page 149:
      To Germantown, Pa., the German frauen carried their domestic industry of the hand knitting of woolen hose, and before 1775 there were one hundred and fifty knitting frames at Germantown and in the vicinity of the Brandywine; […]
    • 2007 January 12, Grace Glueck, “Fun With Studio Crafts: When the Traditional Gets Quirky”, in New York Times‎:
      It presents Dürer’s mother as a sharp-nosed, world-weary German frau looking wryly out at life from under a decorous wimple.

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin fraus.

Pronunciation

Noun

frau m (plural fraus)

  1. fraud

Further reading

German

Etymology

From Frau by making the first letter lower-case. Coined as an alternative to the male-sounding word man (“one”), which is cognate and homophonous with Mann (“adult male”). First used by feminists when writing about women, then occasionally used in general contexts.[1][2] Compare the pronoun mensch. Compare also the use of she vs he in English to refer to someone whose gender is unknown.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /fraʊ̯/
  • Homophone: Frau
  • audio(file)
  • Rhymes: -aʊ̯

Pronoun

frau

  1. (indefinite, informal, slang, rare, often humorous) one, they (indefinite third-person singular pronoun)
    • 1998, Matthias Matussek, Die vaterlose Gesellschaft: überfällige Anmerkungen zum Geschlechterkampf, page 47:
      Sie ist selbst dann noch beschissen, wenn frau sie beendet hat.
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)
    • 2003, Ulrike Schlicht, Selbsterweiterungsprozesse alleinlebender Frauen, →ISBN, page 218:
      Wenn frau sich kennt, braucht sie nicht vor sich wegzulaufen.
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)
    • 2005, Aslı Sevindim, Candlelight Döner. Geschichten über meine deutsch-türkische Familie, Berlin: Ullstein, →ISBN, page 220:
      […] ich ziehe es heraus und halte es in die Höhe … Mein Gott, es ist ein Still-BH. Meine Augen kleben förmlich daran. Ein Büstenhalter, den frau vorne aufmachen kann …
      […] I pull it out and hold it into the height … Dear God, it is a nursing bra. My eyes were like they cleft to it. A brassière the woman can open in the front …
    • 2008, Gaye Suse Kromer, Obszöne Lust oder etablierte Unterhaltung?, page 163:
      Erst mal sechs Jahre alleine und frau muss auch zusehen, dass sie sich gerne hat. Das liebe ich, mit mir selbst zu sein und mich zu mögen und mich zu streicheln.
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)
    • 2008, L. Schäfer, Gemeindepädagogisches Forum 2008; Abschlussimpuls‎, archived from the original on 15 September 2016:
      … und wenn man / frau älter wird?
      … and when one gets older?

Usage notes
  • The word is more frequently used by left-wing and/or feminist writers and speakers, which may use this word in a serious formal context, where this word is not usually acceptable, in order to express their political views. In informal context, such as magazine articles, frau is usually used just once in a text as a stylistic flourish to underline that a women-specific topic is discussed.

References
  1. Petra Storjohann, Diachrone Angaben im Wortartikel frau, page 320, in Grundfragen der elektronischen Lexikographie, edited by Ulrike Haß, →ISBN.
  2. Theo Stemmler: Wie das Eisbein ins Lexikon kam, page 15, →ISBN.

Further reading
  • “frau” in Duden online
  • “frau” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache

Norwegian Nynorsk

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old Norse frauð.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /frœʊ̯ː/
  • Rhymes: -œʊ̯ː

Noun

frau f or m (definite singular frauen or fraua, indefinite plural frauer or frauar, definite plural frauene or frauane)

  1. (chiefly uncountable, dialectal) foam
  2. (chiefly uncountable, dialectal, Trøndelag) dung; manure

Inflection
Historical inflection of frau
indefinite singular definite singular indefinite plural definite plural
Aasen1, 2 ei Frau Fraui Frauer Frauerna
19033 – – – –
1938 ei frau fraua [fraui] frauer frauene
1959 ein, ei frau frauen, fraua [fraui] frauar, frauer frauane, frauene
2012 (current) ein, ei frau frauen, fraua frauar, frauer frauane, frauene

Forms in italics are currently considered non-standard. Forms in [brackets] were official, but considered second-tier. Forms in (parentheses) were allowed under Midlandsnormalen. 1Nouns were capitalised for most of the 19th century. 2Aasen lists Frau as an alternative form to Fraud. 3The official glossary only lists the form fraud.

References

Anagrams
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