fehlschlagen
German, verb
fehlschlagen is spelled F-E-H-L-S-C-H-L-A-G-E-N (12 letters) and appears about once in every 3 million words in written German, the 88,766th most frequent German word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Fehlschlagen is a German verb meaning “to fail” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). On this page, Fehlschlägen is a different word: “dative plural of Fehlschlag”. The German Wiktionary defines it as “nicht den gewünschten Erfolg bringen”.
What does fehlschlagen mean in English?
verb
- 1
to fail
- 2
to abort
noun
- 1
masculinedative plural of Fehlschlag
Source: English Wiktionary, German section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How German dictionaries define it
verb: 1. nicht den gewünschten Erfolg bringen
The definition in the German Wiktionary, in German.
Source: German Wiktionary, dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of fehlschlagen
- schlägt fehl present singular third-person
- schlug fehl past
- fehlgeschlagen participle past
- schlüge fehl past subjunctive
- sein auxiliary
- 6 strong
- fehlschlagend participle present
- fehlzuschlagen infinitive infinitive-zu
- schlage fehl first-person indicative present
- schlagen fehl first-person indicative plural
- schlägst fehl indicative present second-person
- schlagt fehl indicative plural present
- schlagest fehl second-person singular subjunctive
- schlaget fehl plural second-person subjunctive
- schlugen fehl first-person indicative plural
- schlügen fehl first-person formal plural
- schlugst fehl indicative preterite second-person
- schlugt fehl indicative plural preterite
Source: English Wiktionary and German Wiktionary (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
English words that translate to fehlschlagen
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is fehlschlagen in German?
fehlschlagen appears about once in every 3 million words in written German.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).