quaken
German, verb
quaken is spelled Q-U-A-K-E-N (6 letters) and appears about once in every 6 million words in written German, the 123,622nd most frequent German word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Quaken is a German verb meaning “to quack” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). With an umlaut, quäken is a different word: “to squeak”. The German Wiktionary defines it as “nasalen Laut quak erzeugen, meistens mehrmals; typischerweise von Frosch oder Ente, selten auch von andern…”.
What does quaken mean in English?
verb
- 1
to quack
- 2
to croak
verb
- 1
to squeak
Source: English Wiktionary, German section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How German dictionaries define it
verb: 1. nasalen Laut quak erzeugen, meistens mehrmals; typischerweise von Frosch oder Ente, selten auch von andern Tieren wie der Gans
verb: 1. hoch, quengelig und heiser erklingen 2. quengeln, missmutig oder unzufrieden jammern
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 quaken
- quakt present singular third-person
- quakte past
- gequakt participle past
- haben auxiliary
- quakend participle present
- quake first-person indicative present
- quakst indicative present second-person
- quakest second-person singular subjunctive
- quaket plural second-person subjunctive
- quakten first-person indicative plural
- quaktest indicative preterite second-person
- quaktet indicative plural preterite
- quak imperative second-person singular
- habe gequakt first-person indicative multiword-construction
- haben gequakt first-person indicative multiword-construction
- quake! imperative singular
- quak! imperative singular
- quakt! imperative plural
Source: English Wiktionary and German Wiktionary (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
English words that translate to quaken
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is quaken in German?
quaken appears about once in every 6 million words in written German.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).