der Fisch stinkt immer vom Kopfe her
[dɛʁ fɪʃ ʃtɪŋkt ˈɪmɐ fɔm ˈkɔp͡fə hɛʁ]
The verdict
“der Fisch stinkt immer vom Kopfe her” is outside the top-ranked German vocabulary, used as a phrase - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency German
- 36
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) — Verantwortung für die Probleme liegt (immer) bei den Entscheidungsträgern
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | der Fisch stinkt immer vom Kopfe her |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Phrase |
| IPA | [dɛʁ fɪʃ ʃtɪŋkt ˈɪmɐ fɔm ˈkɔp͡fə hɛʁ] |
| Letters | 36 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “der Fisch stinkt immer vom Kopfe her” sits in German frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The German entry for der Fisch stinkt immer vom Kopfe her is 36 letters long, classified as a phrase, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [dɛʁ fɪʃ ʃtɪŋkt ˈɪmɐ fɔm ˈkɔp͡fə hɛʁ]. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Verantwortung für die Probleme liegt (immer) bei den Entscheidungsträgern".
No misspelling variants are generated for der Fisch stinkt immer vom Kopfe her in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable German patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct German form is der Fisch stinkt immer vom Kopfe her, spelled D-E-R- -F-I-S-C-H- -S-T-I-N-K-T- -I-M-M-E-R- -V-O-M- -K-O-P-F-E- -H-E-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Verantwortung für die Probleme liegt (immer) bei den Entscheidungsträgern
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Cite this page
Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:
PlainSpell, “der Fisch stinkt immer vom Kopfe her, German word data” (May 6, 2026). Derived from Wiktionary (kaikki.org, CC BY-SA) and an open word-frequency list. https://plainspell.com/de/wort/der-fisch-stinkt-immer-vom-kopfe-her
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "der Fisch stinkt immer vom Kopfe her"?
What does "der Fisch stinkt immer vom Kopfe her" mean?
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Using “der Fisch stinkt immer vom Kopfe her”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct German spelling is D-E-R- -F-I-S-C-H- -S-T-I-N-K-T- -I-M-M-E-R- -V-O-M- -K-O-P-F-E- -H-E-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [dɛʁ fɪʃ ʃtɪŋkt ˈɪmɐ fɔm ˈkɔp͡fə hɛʁ] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more German words and confusable pairs in the same reference. German words
Nearby German words
Other entries that begin with the letter D in our German index: