verballhornen
German, verb
verballhornen is spelled V-E-R-B-A-L-L-H-O-R-N-E-N (13 letters) and appears about once in every 79 million words in written German, the 557,474th most frequent German word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Verballhornen is a German verb meaning “to distort, to corrupt (to change a word or phrase through folk etymology or general ignorance of the original form, especially when…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). With a capital, Verballhornen is a different word: “gerund of verballhornen”. The German Wiktionary defines it as “ein (häufig fremdsprachiges) Wort in einer Art und Weise falsch aussprechen oder schreiben, dass Anklänge an…”.
What does verballhornen mean in English?
verb
- 1
to distort, to corrupt (to change a word or phrase through folk etymology or general ignorance of the original form, especially when borrowing from a foreign language)
„Joly“ wurde zu „Scholli“ verballhornt.
- 2
to mock, to jokingly refer to [with als] (to purposefully distort a word in such a way to make fun of what is being referred to)
- 3
to mock, to satirize
noun
- 1
neutergerund of verballhornen
Source: English Wiktionary, German section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How German dictionaries define it
verb: 1. ein (häufig fremdsprachiges) Wort in einer Art und Weise falsch aussprechen oder schreiben, dass Anklänge an heimische Wörter entstehen und dabei oft lächerlich/verächtlich machen.
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 verballhornen
- verballhornt present singular third-person
- verballhornte past
- haben auxiliary
- verballhornend participle present
- verballhorne first-person indicative present
- verballhornst indicative present second-person
- verballhornest second-person singular subjunctive
- verballhornet plural second-person subjunctive
- verballhornten first-person indicative plural
- verballhorntest indicative preterite second-person
- verballhorntet indicative plural preterite
- verballhorn imperative second-person singular
- habe verballhornt first-person indicative multiword-construction
- haben verballhornt first-person indicative multiword-construction
- verballhorne! imperative singular
- verballhorn! imperative singular
- verballhornt! imperative plural
- verballhornt haben active infinitive perfect
Source: English Wiktionary and German Wiktionary (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How common is verballhornen in German?
verballhornen appears about once in every 79 million words in written German.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).