quälen
German, verb
quälen is spelled Q-U-Ä-L-E-N (6 letters) and appears 3.8 times per million words in written German, the 15,068th most frequent German word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Quälen is a German verb meaning “to torture, to torment, to agonize” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). On this page, Qualen is a different word: “plural of Qual”. The German Wiktionary defines it as “absichtlich Schmerzen zufügen, leiden machen”.
What does quälen mean in English?
verb
- 1
to torture, to torment, to agonize
- 2
to cause sorrow, to upset, to worry
- 3
to harass, to bother
- 4
to toil, to struggle
noun
- 1
plural of Qual
Source: English Wiktionary, German section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How German dictionaries define it
verb: 1. absichtlich Schmerzen zufügen, leiden machen
noun: 1. absichtliches Zufügen von Schmerzen, Verursachen von Leid
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 quälen
- quält present singular third-person
- quälte past
- gequält participle past
- haben auxiliary
- quälend participle present
- quäle first-person indicative present
- quälst indicative present second-person
- quälest second-person singular subjunctive
- quälet plural second-person subjunctive
- quälten first-person indicative plural
- quältest indicative preterite second-person
- quältet indicative plural preterite
- quäl imperative second-person singular
- habe gequält first-person indicative multiword-construction
- haben gequält first-person indicative multiword-construction
- quäle! imperative singular
- quält! imperative plural
- gequält haben active infinitive perfect
Source: English Wiktionary and German Wiktionary (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
English words that translate to quälen
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is quälen in German?
quälen appears 3.8 times per million words in written German.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).