sehnen
German, verb
sehnen is spelled S-E-H-N-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). Sehnen is a German verb meaning “to yearn, to long” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). With a capital, Sehnen is a different word: “plural of Sehne”. The German Wiktionary defines it as “den starken Wunsch haben, dass jemand oder etwas da ist”.
What does sehnen mean in English?
verb
- 1
to yearn, to long
sich nach jemandem sehnen
noun
- 1
plural of Sehne
noun
- 1
neutergerund of sehnen
Source: English Wiktionary, German section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How German dictionaries define it
verb: 1. den starken Wunsch haben, dass jemand oder etwas da ist
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 sehnen
- sehnt present singular third-person
- sehnte past
- gesehnt participle past
- haben auxiliary
- sehnend participle present
- sehne first-person indicative present
- sehnst indicative present second-person
- sehnest second-person singular subjunctive
- sehnet plural second-person subjunctive
- sehnten first-person indicative plural
- sehntest indicative preterite second-person
- sehntet indicative plural preterite
- sehn imperative second-person singular
- habe gesehnt first-person indicative multiword-construction
- haben gesehnt first-person indicative multiword-construction
- sehne! imperative singular
- sehnt! imperative plural
- sich sehnen infinitive present not-extended
Source: English Wiktionary and German Wiktionary (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
English words that translate to sehnen
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is sehnen in German?
sehnen 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).