sich auf die Zunge beißen
[zɪç aʊ̯f diː ˈt͡sʊŋə ˈbaɪ̯sn̩]
The verdict
“sich auf die Zunge beißen” is outside the top-ranked German vocabulary, used as a phrase - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency German
- 25
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) — sich beherrschen und etwas nicht sagen
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sich auf die Zunge beißen |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Phrase |
| IPA | [zɪç aʊ̯f diː ˈt͡sʊŋə ˈbaɪ̯sn̩] |
| Letters | 25 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sich auf die Zunge beißen” sits in German frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The German entry for sich auf die Zunge beißen is 25 letters long, classified as a phrase, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [zɪç aʊ̯f diː ˈt͡sʊŋə ˈbaɪ̯sn̩]. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "sich beherrschen und etwas nicht sagen".
No misspelling variants are generated for sich auf die Zunge beißen in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable German patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct German form is sich auf die Zunge beißen, spelled S-I-C-H- -A-U-F- -D-I-E- -Z-U-N-G-E- -B-E-I-S-S-E-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1sich beherrschen und etwas nicht sagen
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Cite this page
Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:
PlainSpell, “sich auf die Zunge beißen, German word data” (May 6, 2026). Derived from Wiktionary (kaikki.org, CC BY-SA) and an open word-frequency list. https://plainspell.com/de/wort/sich-auf-die-zunge-bei-en
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “sich auf die Zunge beißen”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct German spelling is S-I-C-H- -A-U-F- -D-I-E- -Z-U-N-G-E- -B-E-I-S-S-E-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [zɪç aʊ̯f diː ˈt͡sʊŋə ˈbaɪ̯sn̩] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more German words and confusable pairs in the same reference. German words
Nearby German words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our German index: