quellen
German, verb
quellen is spelled Q-U-E-L-L-E-N (7 letters) and appears 46 times per million words in written German, the 1,852nd most frequent German word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Quellen is a German verb meaning “to well, to spring (issue forth, as water from the earth)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). With a capital, Quellen is a different word: “plural of Quelle”. The German Wiktionary defines it as “austreten, ansteigen, sprudeln”.
What does quellen mean in English?
verb
- 1
to well, to spring (issue forth, as water from the earth)
Wasser quillt aus der Erde.
- 2
to swell, to soak (expand by soaking up a liquid or by capturing an internally generated gas (bakery, fermentation))
verb
- 1
to soak
Erbsen müssen vor dem Kochen gequellt werden.
noun
- 1
plural of Quelle
Source: English Wiktionary, German section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How German dictionaries define it
verb: 1. austreten, ansteigen, sprudeln 2. anschwellen eines Materials (insbesondere durch Aufnahme von Gas oder Flüssigkeit von außen oder durch Umwandlung fester oder flüssiger Stoffe in Gase wie beim Backen)
verb: 1. zur Volumenzunahme durch Wasseraufnahme veranlassen
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 quellen
- quillt present singular third-person
- quoll past
- gequollen participle past
- quölle past subjunctive
- sein auxiliary
- 3 strong
- quellend participle present
- quelle first-person indicative present
- quillst indicative present second-person
- quellt indicative plural present
- quellest second-person singular subjunctive
- quellet plural second-person subjunctive
- quollen first-person indicative plural
- quöllen first-person formal plural
- quollst indicative preterite second-person
- quollt indicative plural preterite
- quöllest formal rare second-person
- quöllst formal rare second-person
Source: English Wiktionary and German Wiktionary (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How common is quellen in German?
quellen appears 46 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).