German

Noun

Kriegen n ‎(genitive Kriegens, no plural)

1. gerund of kriegen: "catching"

Declension

Etymology 2

Noun

Kriegen

1. dative plural of Krieg

German

Verb

kriegen ‎(third-person singular simple present kriegt, past tense kriegte, past participle gekriegt, auxiliary haben)

1. (chiefly colloquial) to get
2. (chiefly colloquial) to catch, to come down with
3. (dated, rare) to war

Usage notes

• Kriegen is relatively infrequent in the formal standard language, which prefers bekommen or erhalten instead. However, kriegen is very frequent in colloquial German, where the verb often retains the vowel shortening that is occurring in local dialects in the second and third person singular of verbs. Thus, (du) kriegst is often pronounced /kʁɪs(t)/, (er) kriegt may be /kʁɪkt/, /kʁɪç(t)/. These pronunciations are not used for the rare sense “to war”.

Conjugation

Synonyms

• bekommen
• erhalten

Derived terms

German Low German

Etymology

From Middle Low German krîgen. Verbalisation of krîg ‎(“war”). Compare German kriegen, Dutch krijgen.

Verb

kriegen (past singular kreeg, past participle kregen, auxiliary verb hebben)

1. to get
2. to catch
3. to come down with

Conjugation